I was watching two videos of roof operations a few weeks ago with a group of fire chiefs. These chiefs represent fire departments from across the country. In the first video, we saw a firefighter or officer who was working on a roof, probably supported by lightweight wooden trusses, fall through a section of the roof that looked to the viewer to be some distance from the main fire area. The firefighter fell into a top-floor apartment and appeared to be unhurt. He was able to escape.
In the second video, a group of firefighters were working on a bowstring-truss roof. Heavy smoke and heat were venting from the building for a long time as they struggled to open the roof. Eventually, the hot gases ignited explosively from the roof opening cut just minutes before. The firefighters continued to work to open the roof. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed.
In August 1978, six FDNY firefighters were killed in the Waldbaum's supermarket fire in Brooklyn when a rain roof covering a wooden bowstring-truss roof collapsed during a four-alarm fire. A dozen firefighters were pitched into the store, with several miraculously surviving. In July 1988, six Hackensack, NJ, firefighters were killed when a similar wooden bowstring-truss roof collapsed during a fire in an automobile dealership service garage. These and other fires prompted the need to operate cautiously near these inherently dangerous buildings.
Over the years, there have been many other fatalities and numerous close calls to firefighters operating in, on, or near and around these types of structures. Many states have since passed laws mandating that identifying symbols be placed on the outside of these structures to warn firefighters of impending danger. The chiefs watching the videos with me commented that they would not have placed their firefighters in those serious situations. They had knowledge of the dangers and the problems with the construction of these types of occupancies. The trouble is that many times, incidents around the country continue with firefighters operating in these situations and not knowing the danger they are in - luckily, most of the time, the fire burns up, the building burns down and the firefighters live another day to talk about it.
Are we really learning the lessons of these tragedies, in this case using truss roofs as an example, and passing the lessons on to those new members who join the fire service after us? How many times do we have to repeat the mistakes of the past and threaten the lives of the firefighters in the future? The group of chiefs discussed why the group of firefighters they were watching were exposed to the dangers. I repeated that maybe we aren't teaching the lessons learned from these tragic mistakes to our new fire service.
Everywhere I travel recently, all the firefighters talk about is who is retiring, how many new firefighters they have or will hire, and what percentage of the department is eligible to retire. With all the retirements, promotions and hiring nationwide, maybe we need to reinforce the need to learn the lessons from these previous firefighter fatality incidents or we are sure to repeat them. Maybe a few hours during Firefighter I class or probationary fire school should be set aside to address this important training issue and pay a lifetime of dividends. Like one fire chief recently said, we aren't killing firefighters in new ways, it is always the same. Nothing much varied among the causes of the 102 firefighters who died in 2002. As I write this in mid-February, already 13 U.S. firefighters have died in the line of duty this year.
