CINCINNATI --
Some rescues from a future fire or building collapse in Cincinnati just got much quicker.
The Cincinnati Fire Department is one of six in the nation to receive a piece of equipment that shortens rescue time considerably, perhaps 15 minutes or more. It is a 105-pound tool that fires a 30-pound piece of metal at a speed of 70 mph.
News 5 watched this morning as firefighters demonstrated CIRT, or Controlled Impact Rescue Tool. With three shots at a thick concrete slab, it broke it apart within a matter of seconds. The conventional method that requires cables and other cumbersome connections would take many critical minutes.
"It's like a big gun," according to Lt. Grant Light of Heavy Rescue 9. "Anywhere that we need a hole through a concrete wall, whether it's for rescuing victims, whether it's a firefighter calls a mayday and we know he's on the other side of this wall, we can blow a hole through the wall, get in there and try to get him out."
CIRT will also be used to give firefighters speedier access to fires if they need to pour water into an area of a burning home or building.
In the past in many instances, firefighters would have to take turns with a sledgehammer to bust through some barriers for a rescue. The work would often wear out so many of them that replacement firefighters would have to respond.
CIRT will likely eliminate that situation.
Cincinnati has received two of them from the Department of Homeland Security. They're now on the fire trucks, ready for use, giving firefighters something they highly value, the ability to carry out a rescue in a more timely and efficient way.
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