Collapse Rescue Operations

It's a Saturday afternoon. You respond to a report of a building collapse with trapped occupants. (unknown number). Arriving on scene, you observe a three story brick and joist (Type III) occupancy with an apparent roof collapse into the third floor.

The section of the building is part of a larger block area extending along the Bravo and Delta sides.

There appears to be a V-shaped collapse of the roof with structural compromise into the third floor. You're advised that there are at least 36 occupants living in the primary structure. The first floor has a commercial establishment (neighborhood Bar & Restaurant), the second and third floors are apartments. There is a debris pile on the sidewalk in front of the structure ( Alpha side). Some occupants are observed self extricating and appearing in the street or in window areas. There is no evidence of any visible fire or smoke at the time of your arrival. What are you going to do?

What is your immediate priority and needs?
What are the first five steps in your Incident Action Plan (IAP)?
Assuming you have a least a first alarm assignment consisting of Three (3) Engine Companies; One (1) Truck Company; One (1) Heavy Rescue Company, the Battalion Chief and a Safety Officer either on scene or enroute;
How will you deploy and utilize your resources?
What will you need?
What are the safety considerations?
How long do you plan to operate at the scene? (Logistics and Planning)
What is the risk profile of the building(s)?
What will change IF a fire abruptly erupts from the rear first floor?


Now get to work…...
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  • up

    Chris

    What do this engineers try to do? They are there for engineering advice and thats it. We had a church ceiling collapse last week in the town next to mine. The company I work for went in evaluated it to make sure the main roof was okay strucutrally. The ceiling was lath and plaster and attached to the roof trusses. Once we told command it was okay we were done, they could continue in shoring the remaining ceiling, etc. We went back the next day to see what caused the failure was so that we could give a church a former report.

    In this incident I believe in this incident the IC made a wise decision to make sure the main roof structure was okay before continuing with anything since it would it hurt fire/rescue personnel and possibly bystanders, etc. if it collapsed. Just to note that there was no rescue needed during this incident no one was in the church at the time of the collapse.
  • up

    Ben Waller

    If there's no rescue, then I'm going to make sure that the Building Codes folks and the police are there, get the structure cordoned off and utilities controlled, evacuate the exposures, and have all fire-rescue and EMS units take up. At that point, there's no need for us to hang around, and the engineers, codes people, and investigators are the appropriate resources. We're not in any hurry if we can confirm that there's no rescue problem.
  • up

    FETC

    This would be so much easier with an identification system.