Nine Career Fire Fighters Die in Rapid Fire Progression at Commercial Furniture Showroom – Charleston, South Carolina
SUMMARY
On June 18, 2007, nine career fire fighters (all males, ages 27 – 56) died when they became disoriented and ran out of air in rapidly deteriorating conditions inside a burning commercial furniture showroom and warehouse facility. The first arriving engine company found a rapidly growing fire at the enclosed loading dock connecting the showroom to the warehouse. The Assistant Chief entered the main showroom entrance at the front of the structure but did not find any signs of fire or smoke in the main showroom.
Click on the below attached PDF file to read the Final NIOSH report as of February 11, 2009 on the 9 FF's that died in Charleston, South Carolina..
It's 70 pages long, but offers significant Lessons Learned.
Some Lessons Learned were: no Incident Commander was established, but 3 Chief Officers were on scene, no Accountability system was in place and their Water Supply was being run over by cars.
Many of the situations from this incident have been implemented into training as what not to do or better yet what to do. There has been and will continue to be lessons learned from this incident.