A dangerous ladder collapse on a fire call had investigators scrambling to determine what caused the steel structure to fail, but didn't keep other ladder trucks from making runs yesterday.
On Tuesday at 8:30 p.m., Back Bay's Ladder 15 raced to the scene of a suspected fire on Massachusetts Avenue, but when firefighters hoisted up the 100-foot ladder to the top of the building, the unthinkable happened: the steel rail bent under its own weight, firefighers told the Herald.
"What happened to this ladder, I have not seen before," said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald.
Firehouse.com Editor's Note: Firehouse.com spoke to Pierce Spokeswoman Kirsten Skyba.
"Pierce received a call yesterday morning that there had been an incident involving one of our ladders," Skyba said. "We immediately dispatched two engineers to work with the department to investigate the cause of the incident. At this point the cause of the incident has not been identified. We'll be reviewing the incident with the fire department and supporting them in any way possible."
Skyba called the Boston Herald's report that the ladder collapsed under it's own weight speculation, saying that claim had not been verified.
The bizarre hazard prompted firefighters to summon a crane that wrapped safety cables around the ladder to lower it gently onto the truck.
Firefighters hadn't begun climbing the ladder before it collapsed, MacDonald said. The fire call turned out to be a false alarm, but the road at 400 Massachusetts Ave. remained closed for more than an hour because of the ladder failure.
Ed Kelly, president of Boston Firefighters Local 718, said the reliability of a ladder is the last thing a firefighter should have to worry about, and said he shuddered to think what would have happened if the call had been a real fire.
"You're climbing up a ladder that goes 100 feet in the air and you have to put your faith in the apparatus," he said. "Our biggest concern is for the safety of our members. Thank God nobody got hurt."
The ladder truck, which cost nearly $500,000, is one of four that the city recently purchased from Wisconsin-based Pierce Manufacturing Co. The company yesterday flew two engineers to Boston to investigate the remaining three Pierce ladders - at Ladder 1 in the North End, Ladder 18 in Southie and Dorchester's Ladder 7 - are still in service because they passed inspection yesterday morning, MacDonald said.
Kirsten Skyba, spokeswoman for Pierce, said the investigation is ongoing. She declined to comment on what could have caused the damage and whether any similar incidents had been reported.
Kelly said the department's four Pierce ladders were the first in recent memory purchased by the city, which had traditionally bought fire vehicles and equipment from Florida manufacturing company E-ONE.
Courtesy The Boston Herald
