This is the first of a series of illustrated columns on the subject of trusses.
In 1952 in NYC, I saw what I now know to be parallel chord wood trusses being used as roof beams in a supermarket I immediately saw that they would have far less resistance to fire than three-inch sawn beams. I wrote to the fire commissioner and suggested that this hazard be looked into and written up for the troops. No reply and nothing was done.
The curse of the fire service is the reverence given to experience and the neglect of analysis of potential hazards.
In 1971, I wrote
