FIREFIGHTERS / EMS / SAR

FIREFIGHTERS / EMS / SAR

RTR offers instructor-level rope rescue training to Structural or Wildland Firefighters, Emergency Medical Services and Wilderness Search and Rescue teams. You may wish to send your team instructors to one of our Open Enrollment Programs held in Arizona or around the globe or have a Custom Tailored Rescue Program at your location. RTR has a comprehensive lineup of workshops from Tree & Tower Rescue to Industrial Rescue to Personal Skills through Advanced Skills along with specialty workshops on the popular Arizona Vortex.

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R.E.M.S. Training

R.E.M.S. Training

We offer intensive instructor-level R.E.M.S. training through the Tactical Wilderness Rescue Workshop. The TWRW seeks to explore solutions for a safe, and most of all, efficient minimalist wilderness rescue delineated in NFPA 2500. Designed for the serious wilderness SAR and fire practitioners wishing to improve their personal rigging skill and backcountry capability, off the beaten path and with fewer rescuers. And it is made to be quickly done lacking huge complicated rope systems.

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ART OF CLEAN RIGGING

INSTRUCTOR-LEVEL - THE ART OF CLEAN RIGGING

In keeping with “The ART of Clean Rigging" paradigm, RTR is renowned for their teaching of practical rigging principles with understanding through teaching skill, state of the art visual aids and written material. While seemingly complex at first, they foster the understanding necessary to enhance the instructor's ability to communicate the ‘ART-FORM’. Get instructor-level training from the co-designer of the Arizona Vortex, Reed Thorne.

READ MORE: OFFSETS READ MORE: ARIZONA VORTEX
EXTREME VENUES

BREATHTAKING VENUES

The stunning venues that RTR has amassed for all of its worldwide 'ART of Clean Rigging' workshops in the USA, Canada, Scotland, England, Japan, Australia and New Zealand has students coming back for repeat participation and rigging study. From bridging Athabasca Falls in Alberta (shown), to the Auckland Sky Tower (NZ), to the Seattle Space Needle, to Progressive Field stadium and ASM Geodesic Dome in Cleveland, to the canyonlands or Sedona (AZ), to the historic copper mine town of Jerome (AZ), to the over 700’ high Forest Hill Bridge in Auburn (CA) RTR has access to some of the most awesome venues for its programs.

SEE MANY OF OUR VENUES HERE
LINEMAN TRAINING

LINEMEN TRANSMISSION LINE RESCUE & ROPE ACCESS

Reed Thorne of RTR originally pioneered the usage of rope access techniques on power transmission lines within the US. His illustrations (left) are used by power delivery utilities to enhance their training and procedure manuals with every detail shown. The photo shows the culmination of this rope access procedure in 2020 which Thorne personally taught to PG&E ‘towermen’ on 500kv power lines in California.

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TREE RESCUE FOR FIREFIGHTERS

TREE RESCUE FOR FIREFIGHTERS

Trees present difficult rescue solutions as they are a foreign environment to emergency personnel. In a way, they are very much like tower rescue in that they begin at the bottom with the victim or casualty high up in the branches. How can a firefighter gain access from the ground to this elevated location and get the person needing rescue down? Even better than that, how can this be done safely and in a timely fashion? These are the basic components of the Tree Rescue Workshop— Firefighter. The TRW-F is a rescue class for fire and emergency services—not for arborists. We employ techniques, rope and equipment that would be found on a rescue truck.

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ROPE ACCESS

ROPE ACCESS TRAINING

Rope access has become fully recognized in this country as a means of maintaining and inspecting structural infrastructure. Wind turbines, dams and bridges all need regular and routine maintenance on rope without scaffolding. Keith Thorne is the lead instructor for Ropes That Rescue who has spent his entire life on rope and is a rope access level 3 technician for the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians (SPRAT). He, with two other RTR alumni took first place in the 2020 North American Petzl ROPE TRIP in Salt Lake City.

READ MORE: ROPE ACCESS SKILLS WORKSHOP 1
READ MORE: ROPE ACCESS SKILLS WORKSHOP 2
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TOWER & INDUSTRIAL

TOWER & INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Whether it is industrial rope access training or working on rope, or rescue training from structural or tower environments, RTR has open enrollment workshops to suit this need all over the world. These are not your shorter programs where only the minimum material is covered to suffice government regulations, but rather an in-depth, instructor-level, 7 full days going through lectures and field exercises to foster understanding though practical physics and rigging theory.

READ MORE: TOWER RESCUE READ MORE: INDUSTRIAL RESCUE
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Our Expertise: The Vertical Realm

"The ART of Clean Rigging" - The rigging school based out of Sedona, in the rugged highlands of northern Arizona, USA

INSTRUCTOR-LEVEL
ROPE RESCUE & RIGGING TRAINING

Ropes Rescue Training Sedona AZ

Ropes That Rescue is historically known for teaching the science and art for the practical application of rigging in a multiplicity of differing workshops, all seven full days in length. Learn the ARTFORM of "Clean Rigging" that will insure you come away with the understanding of not only WHAT you believe, but also more importantly, WHY you believe it. Programs are held in several US States, Canada, England and Scotland, Japan and also down under in Australia and New Zealand. Ropes That Rescue can also train at your agency or location with any style program needed to fit your training needs.

Also, once every year in late fall, RTR offers a seven day long "Advanced Anchoring Analysis & Beyond the Barn Floor Seminar" (AAA-BTBF) in either Arizona or Maryland on advanced physics, mathematics and trigonometry used for solving problems associated with rigging. This seminar is not a true workshop and is only offered to RTR alumni at this time.

THE ARIZONA VORTEX MULTIPOD

The ARIZONA VORTEX (or AZV) is expressly considered an "artificial high directional" used as a true 1) high frame directional (at the edge or over an opening) or 2) anchor frame. It is so named from it's development in the rugged highlands of northern Arizona’s Oak Creek Canyon through the rigging and rescue school, Ropes That Rescue.

Reed Thörne, the school’s owner developed the AZV with the help of Rock Thompson at Rock Exotica, in Utah. The AZV was created from years of trial and error and of having worked with crude but functional lashed wood frames at RTR. It represents the essence of at-the-edge frames which no standard tripod can match today.

We offer many instructor-level workshops on the Arizona VORTEX in differing locations around the US, Canada, UK and Australia (and around the world). See the RTR Open Enrollment Schedule for these offerings under "Artificial High Directional Workshop" or AHDW.

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Advanced Seminars & Workshops

ADVANCED ANCHORING ANALYSIS SEMINAR

Two back-to-back Advanced RTR Seminars returning in winter 2025 (see FLYER)

The ADVANCED ANCHORING ANALYSIS SEMINAR 4 Days

The BEYOND THE BARN FLOOR SEMINAR 3 Days

NOTES: Registration: Only past RTR alumni. You should have a good background in mathematics in order to fully participate in this program. See Flyer for information on location, required graph paper/tools/calculators/rulers, etc. You will also need a Hawaiian shirt for the final day of the program. You must take both the AAAS and the BTBF together.

These two advanced seminars are vastly different than any other that RTR offers as there is no over the edge nor on-rope activities. Leave your full harness at home—instead bring your “critical thinking cap”. Both seminars are an immersion into a subject matter that is often overlooked in our other seven day “workshops”. Here, you will need a pencil, parallel ruler, scientific calculator, graph paper and a willingness to learn. The AAAS starts on day one in Frederick, MD (see Flyer) where we will kick off the program. If you have access to an Enforcer, please bring it. (We need several), The AAAS will be mostly barn floor physics with the more advanced physics using algebra, calculus and trigonometric calculations and functions will occur in the final program “Beyond The Barn Floor” (BTBF). You should be familiar with these in order to fully participate in this 7 day workshop. Contact the instructors Mike Green and Reed Thorne for more information on location and logistics.

The Beyond The Barn Floor Seminar is a take off from the somewhat famous quote of Bible scholar and teacher/theologian, Donald Gray Barnhouse (1895 - 1960) "If you are going to be a success (in communicating the Gospel) get the hay down out of the loft, onto the barn floor, where the cows can get it." This quote has been used with much success by senior instructor, Reed Thorne, in relaying the importance of simple and effective communication regarding physics and other physical laws we are inextricably bound to. In this 3 day program, we leave the barn floor and climb into the "loft" with lessons on physics, calculus and trigonometry for those seeking more understanding and depth to their teaching as instructors. Both of these programs are only open to past RTR students so the update will be essential for those who are instructors of the RTR paradigm.

The AAAS is built around the core study of advanced anchoring to include bolting, cams, pins, high directional anchors and rigging major anchors for modern practices. Additional thought-provoking presentations and experiments will be presented by RTR instructors, Reed Thorne and Mike Green and may include special invited guest presenters.
TREE RESCUE WORKSHOP - FIREFIGHTER offered in Nevada City, California
November 18 to 24, 2024 (see FLYER)

7 Days - Difficulty level: Moderately to Extremely Strenuous

Why is this the Tree Rescue Workshop-Firefighter needed? And better yet, WHY Now?

Trees present difficult rescue solutions. In a way, they are very much like tower rescue in that they begin at the bottom with the victim or casualty high up in the branches. How can a firefighter gain access from the ground to this elevated location and get the person needing rescue down? Even better than that, how can this be done safely and in a timely fashion? These are the basic components of the Tree Rescue Workshop— Firefighter.

For power delivery utilities, Reed has always warned that linemen should be the first to get a fellow injured lineman down from a tower. If the fire department takes over that incident, it will take many times longer as the emergency agencies need to have safeties in place to access a power line. With trees, it is much the same. An arborist is the first line rescuer of a co-worker up in a tree, as well they should be. But often, the fire department is called because there is a breakdown in the rescue effort or there is no-one to perform it. Hence, the fire services need to have training on how to approach these difficult bottom up rescues short of using an aerial platform or ladder. The TRW-F is a rescue class for fire and emergency services—not for arborists. We employ techniques , rope and equipment that would be found on a rescue truck.

TRW-F KEY Points: What you will learn

Assessment of the tree rescue incident

Fundamentals of tree risk assessment (So the rescuer can act decisively in the knowledge of this seemingly foreign environment)

Understanding of standard tree industry rigging and access methods (To better understand the rigging you’ll encounter, and best be able to leverage it to your advantage)

Knot and anchor systems used in tree access and rescue, as well as critical knowledge in mechanical advantage systems and force vector analyses (To give you all the mental tools you’ll need for success in tree rescue)

Rescue archetypes

Tree-based (Rescue climber(s) needed only)

Ground-based (No rescue climber needed, ground operations required)

Combination (Tree and ground-based)

Tree access methods and movement within the canopy

Throw lines

Double and single rope techniques

Incrementally advancing doubled rope

Advance-placed shepherd’s hook

Spikes + flip lines

Hitch-based aid climbing

Existing systems (victims’s climb line & industry rigging equipment)

Limb walking, and horizontal movement within the canopy

Using existing pre-existing equipment for rescue

Anchors, friction devices, high points, ropes

Special scenarios

Entrapment, stabilization, cutting, or lifting scenario

High Voltage power lines

Victim without harness

FIREFIGHTERS / EMS / SAR

R.E.M.S. Training

ART OF CLEAN RIGGING

EXTREME VENUES

LINEMAN TRAINING

TREE RESCUE FOR FIREFIGHTERS

ROPE ACCESS

TOWER & INDUSTRIAL

Our Expertise: The Vertical Realm

INSTRUCTOR-LEVELROPE RESCUE & RIGGING TRAINING

THE ARIZONA VORTEX MULTIPOD

Advanced Seminars & Workshops

ADVANCED ANCHORING ANALYSIS SEMINAR

TREE RESCUE WORKSHOP - FIREFIGHTER offered in Nevada City, California

INSTRUCTOR-LEVEL
ROPE RESCUE & RIGGING TRAINING