MILWAUKEE --
A recent 12 News Investigation into a building material you may have in your home will, "Undoubtedly save firefighters lives."
Those are the words of a New York fire captain -- one of hundreds of fire professionals across North America now turning to that 12 News report to help keep people safe.
WISN 12 News put wooden floor beams to the test. They're lightweight, inexpensive and very strong -- used in newer homes everywhere. They're a perfectly good building material and nothing to be concerned about -- unless they catch fire. Then, they can be killers.
WISN 12 News' Kent Wainscott has new information about the deadly hazard that may be hidden in your home.
When the fire call came in, it seemed familiar -- the kind of call that Green Bay firefighters had answered countless times before.
"When we first got there, it was just a little wisp of smoke coming off the back of the house," former Green Bay firefighter Jo Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
There was no reason for Brinkley-Chaudoir or her partner, Lt. Arnie Wolff, to hesitate moving inside to search the home.
"It wasn't something that scared us or anything. We didn't think twice about going in there," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
But for the two veteran firefighters, the situation quickly turned terrifying.
"Took a couple of steps, and when we were completely enveloped in the smoke, we went down to our knees, and we took, maybe another step, when the floor gave way, and that was it," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
The lightweight wooden beams supporting the floor gave way, sending the firefighters crashing into a smoky basement and igniting an inferno.
"I panicked for about three or four seconds, and I was screaming the whole time cause I was on fire, and there was fire everywhere. It was under me. It was on me. It was around me. It was trying to knock my helmet off," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
The hazard that trapped those firefighters in the blaze was one they couldn't see. Before they stepped on that floor, the lightweight beams supporting it had already burned away.
WISN 12 News witnessed the problem last year in another house fire in which the floor also collapsed, injuring two firefighters.
And 12 News cameras demonstrated the dangerous difference between those manufactured I-beams and standard dimensional wood beams in a fire when Wainscott tested them side-by-side.
The manufactured I-beams couldn't handle the fire and failed much faster. It was a simple demonstration of a hazard that landed two Green Bay firefighters right in the middle of a deadly situation.
"I'm going to die. I started screaming for help," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
Nate Daul was one of those who answered that call for help and raced to rescue his fallen colleagues, worrying all along about the failed floor beams.
"I knew that if that floor came down on us, it was going to be a long time before we were going to get help," Daul said.
As Brinkley-Chaudoir fought for her life, she called for her partner.
"I was screaming for Arnie. I could hardly hear myself scream. It was so loud down there, but never saw Arnie, never heard Arnie," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
"There was a partial wall dividing it into two sections, and I was on one side, and Arnie was on the other. So 15 feet away, might as well be 100 miles," Brinkley-Chaudoir said.
She escaped but was badly burned. Wolff never made it out.
His is one of more than two dozen fire deaths in the past decade linked to light-weight wood construction materials.
It's one reason that fire professionals across the country are now using our 12 News report as a training tool -- to demonstrate the danger.
But, one of the nation's largest fire departments contacted 12 News and suggested the hazard is even greater than we had seen -- and that the test only scratched the surface of the problem.
"We can only talk about it. We can only tell people that it's this bad, but really, nobody understands unless they're in our shoes," Chicago Fire Chief Richard Edgeworth said.
WISN 12 News' test demonstrated the danger, but in Chicago, firefighters are taking it one step further -- doing something that's never been done before, and they're convinced it will save lives.
The Chicago Fire Department has teamed up with fire safety experts at Underwriters Laboratories and with the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a test of the same type of manufactured beams but on a much larger scale.
It said the beams that 12 News saw fail in less than 15 minutes -- just at the time firefighters may be entering a burning home -- could actually pose an even deadlier risk to anyone inside.
"Do they assume that it's going to last 15 minutes, because if they're making that assumption, ultimately they're putting their lives at risk," Chicago Fire Department Research Director James Dalton said.
Those tests are giving experts a better look at the true danger posed by light-weight construction -- a danger some already know, all too well.
"Well, for me, the danger has become more real now that we lost Arnie in that fire," Daul said.
Steps have been taken to eliminate the risk. Building codes now require sprinklers, but millions of homes built before the code change contain light-weight wood beams.
That's why learning more about the risk is so important, not only to firefighters but to anyone inside a home when fire breaks out.
Thursday night on 12 News at 10, Wainscott takes viewers inside the Underwriters Lab fire tests.
"The test we conducted was what the folks at UL refer to as a 'parking lot test,' a small sample on a small scale, but here they do it big, in a very scientific way in a room-sized furnace where the temperature can reach more than 2,200 degrees," Wainscott said.
They'll light that furnace -- with a wood floor above -- to see how it holds up with a room full of furniture and two firefighters on top of it. It is a startling look at a hazard that may be in homes all over Wisconsin.
Wainscott will also take a look at what steps you can take to protect yourself.
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