When most firefighters think of training, they think of the basics. Throwing ladders, opening doors, prepping hose lines. Those activities are all related to the primary job of firefighting: getting to people in danger and attempting to save property.
But what happens when the person in need of saving is another firefighter?
That’s where the RIT training team at the Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) comes in. The RIT, or Rapid Intervention Team, is responsible for the rescue of downed firefighters, requiring a whole new set of skills on the fireground.
The IFSI RIT instructors are some of the best in the world, giving students the building blocks they need to perform their best on the fireground. Using the framework of real mayday calls and firefighter fatality case studies, RIT Under Fire instructors teach students RIT-related skills through real-life, scenario-based training. Through the program, students learn the techniques they need to help save the lives of their own on the fireground.
Gary Coney, RIT Under Fire Program Manager at IFSI, says RIT is all too needed. “Unfortunately,” he says, “when we say a RIT job or a RIT incident, it’s not if it’s going to happen, it’s when. We need people to come in and rescue our own people.”
He began his experience with a RIT program during his time with the city of Chicago and has since had the opportunity to share his experience with hundreds of students.
“I was involved with it when we started with Chicago,” Coney recalls. “When we began doing it throughout the state, I really wanted to get involved to help it spread. Now, our classes are expanding. We’ve had firefighters from across the nation and even the world.”
If there’s one idea the IFSI RIT cadre drills relentlessly, it’s grit. “I think probably the biggest thing that we push to teach here at IFSI is not to quit,” Coney says.
That’s because for him, RIT is personal.
“RIT is a very passionate thing because we're saving our own people. Those are the people who we just had lunch or dinner with. We went to their son's or daughter's birthday parties. It’s very passionate work and it's something that can't be stopped. We need to continue to go until we remove that downed firefighter.”
RIT training at IFSI is built to mirror the physical and physiological demands of the job.
Instructor Jeffrey Johnson explains that the program is structured to build confidence and competence step by step. Students begin the week of training in the classroom, then move from there to scenarios—operating within the crawl, walk, run principle.
The pace accelerates as the week progresses. “We’re teaching them different techniques and as the week progresses, they start moving a little bit faster,” says Johnson. “We start adding a few more problems that they have to solve inside the building, rescuing firefighters. By the end of the week they’re firing on all cylinders because now they’ve been able to put everything together that we showed them in the first three days and apply it to the final scenario.”
During that time, the instructors look for improvement opportunities. Johnson explains that failure is important during training. “If you do it right all the time and you don’t have any failures, you’re not really learning.” He says that the best advice he’s ever received about being a firefighter is to, “Keep learning and never quit. Be a student of the game and always continue to learn.”
Johnson also stresses the fundamentals: “When you get to that downed firefighter, it’s air, then straps, then move. Make sure that downed member has air, make sure the straps are tight and then it’s time to move. If you skip ahead and try to move them without making sure you have air, then we’ve just brought out somebody who suffocated when we could have fixed it inside.”
All of that training, hopefully, leads to comprehension.
“My favorite moment,” says Coney, “is the ‘aha’ moment when the students realize, ‘I understand the technique and the way it’s getting done. You do it that way because it makes it easier.’”
The payoff is real-world impact. Johnson says his measure of success as an instructor is the feedback he gets from former students. “We’ve had people come back to us and send us an email, call us on the phone, send us a text message saying that they were involved in a real mayday back at home. The techniques and the conditions that we subjected them to in our class enabled them to perform, to make that rescue or mitigate that circumstance to have a successful outcome.”
Beyond tactics that save firefighters on the fireground, the IFSI instructors are also interested in other aspects of firefighter safety.
“It’s been our experience that the cumulative heat effects of being in a fire building all day—especially for training instructors across the country—is a problem,” says Tim Walsh, Director of Corporate Relations, Development, and Community Engagement at IFSI. IFSI takes that reality seriously, devoting time and research to the problem.
That research isn’t academic window dressing. It informs day-to-day training operations and long-term safety. “We’ve done various studies at live fire evolutions, including acquired structures, to measure the inside temperature of the body by our instructors swallowing thermal capsules. We’ve had blood draws and spirometry to see the effects of the heat,” Walsh explains. The goal: understand and mitigate the cumulative load that heat places on the body, especially during multi-fire days or prolonged training.
RIT work is high-exertion, high-consequence, and often high-heat. The right PPE can reduce the risk of heat stress and enhance mobility, both of which directly impact survivability for the rescuer and the rescued.
Walsh underscores the connection between research and gear performance: “The new gear that’s coming out now from Fire-Dex [AeroFlex] addresses all those issues. It addresses dehydration, it addresses rehab time, and it addresses the cumulative effects of being in a heat area for a long period of time.”
While most firefighters won’t see eight fires in a day like the RIT instructors, “there are some companies that may see 3 to 5. That cumulative heat stress builds up in those members. So having proper PPE that's actually researched with people who are able to look back on how that operates and keeps us safe is paramount to our safety on the fire ground.”
“Cumulative heat stress,” he adds, “happens on the fire ground and even with people just working out in very humid and hot conditions all across the country. But it's a much different animal when you're fighting fire and wearing your PPE. Not only are you fighting the elements, what's going on outside your gear, you're fighting the higher temperatures inside the building and then your temperature continues to raise on the inside of your body. So rehabbing and having PPE that actually breathes and allows breathability to allow some of that heat to escape from the body before you come outside and go to rehab is quite a safety issue that has been handled by Fire-Dex the last few years.”
That’s why Walsh urges firefighters to talk with their PPE reps: “It’s so important to do your research and speak to your PPE representative in your locale to have a real, honest discussion about how you work as a firefighter and what you’re up against—to make sure that you make the correct decision.”
At IFSI, the RIT program is built on hard-won experience, scientific rigor, and a relentless culture of not quitting. It recognizes a hard truth—RIT incidents are a “when,” not an “if.” And it prepares firefighters to meet that moment with clear tactics, calm mindset, and the physical readiness to finish the job.
The work is personal because the stakes are family. The training is demanding because the environment is unforgiving. And the gear matters because what firefighters wear affects their safety on and off the fireground.