Early yesterday morning another firefighter in the U. S. died at a house fire. This time it happened in Wymore, Nebraska, and has been reported on quite extensively at several news sites, including STATter911.
And once again, a firefighter died under a collapsing ceiling/roof. These incidents have been rolling in at an uncomfortable rate this year, both large fires and small. While Jeremy Wach was being taken away from his family in Wymore yesterday, the British Fire Services were still looking for three of their colleagues beneath a massive steel roof of a former airplane hanger. And just three months ago, on August 3, two volunteer FF’s near Tyler, Texas, were buried underneath the roof of a small single-family dwelling.
A couple of months ago LightRock and I were discussing this trend and wondering how and if we could address it on these pages. At first glance it looks so obvious that you wonder why something isn’t being done to reverse this trend. But it’s not that simple. When there’s a fire in a building, you have to go in there to put it out, unless the conditions have deteriorated to the point where collapse is imminent. And that is where the solution lies….. recognizing when that condition occurs.
And apparently not enough attention is being paid to training fire officers how to recognize the potential of collapse and when it’s necessary to withdraw. But how to learn this skill is no mystery. It’s old-school stuff that’s been around for decades, but for some reason has been dropped off the curriculum. The tragedies in Charleston and Boston this year might well have been avoided if only somebody had taken a moment to check the overhead.
Students of the late Frank Brannigan always came out of his training sessions with a firm knowledge of steel truss roofs and how to protect yourself from their inherent dangers. One of the tricks he taught was to use the solid-stream setting of your nozzle to blow off the ceiling tiles and then put a cooling spray on the trusses. It only takes a few seconds and then you can get back to work. Do you see anybody doing that these days?
Lots of departments are finally stocking up on thermal imagers now. It’s a marvelous invention, and a great boon for the FD when it comes to locating not only victims, but hidden fire. Recently the Chicago Fire Dept. reported an incident where their FF’s were inside a commercial retail building attacking a fire when an officer aimed his thermal imager at the ceiling. It indicated that there was heavy fire in the truss area that was moving fast. He immediately called for an evacuation and 10 firefighters were pulled out. Less than three minutes later the entire roof came down. A terrible loss of life was avoided and the incident ended up just being a blip on the evening news.
The tools are there. The knowledge is there. Let’s start using them. We are getting way too many of our firefighters buried under somebody else’s roofs.
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All right, let’s get the equipment checked out. I’ll start the coffee.
