The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
Collapse Rescue Operations
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…...
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Trainer on
-
Ben, this has been fun, ate up a boring ass Sunday. I didn’t go over and read the report from Oklahoma, but from what you are saying, the FBI musta been pissed, some of the law enforcement training is to take a back seat to no one. Did the Presidential agreement come during the incident or later in an AAR?
-
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
-
Trainer,
The decision was actually made by James L. Witt, then the FEMA Director, but with backing from President Clinton. They are old friends, as Witt was the Arkansas state EMA Director when Clinton was the Governor there.
The turf war lasted for about the first 3 days after the bombing, because the FBI was shouting "crime scene" and the fire department and USAR command structure saying "do you want the building shored and the bodies recovered or not"?
The NIMS IS-800 class is designed to educate responders and government officials to the National Response Framework (formerly the National Response Plan, formerly a Bush Presidential Decision Directive, formerly a Clinton Presidential Decision Directive, confused enough?) on how this works. The FBI is now designated as the Single Command for terrorist incidents, but they're also trained that they don't interfere with local responder's fire, rescue, EMS, or scene safety priorities. They are supposed to work with the local responders to protect life, protect evidence, and prosecute the perps - if any of them survive.
On a local level, we've worked several mystery powder incidents with the FBI as IC. They designate an Operations Branch with either the fire chief or hazmat commander in charge, and we do our thing including surveying the scene, ruling out radioactivity, securing evidence, maintaining the chain of evidence, overpacking the evidence, decontaminating the exterior overpack, and transferring the overpack to law enforcement for transport to a crime lab. We have about 30 firefighters that are trained as both USAR and HAZMAT technicians, and all are trained in evidence collection including HAZMAT evidence collection. We carry and Evidex X-Kit for sampling, and we have several local cops who function as team members and work for the HAZMAT chief (not the sheriff) while on team responses.
It works well for us. Training and planning together before the call is the key to avoiding turf wars and ye olde urination competitions.
-
-
Ben;
That would take some big kahonies to but heads with the FBI. If I remember right, this incident is where the whole NIMS thing kinda got it’s start, but I may be wrong. Anyways we just completed a full scale drill, but for some reason the cops took a small roll. To bad because it was set up perfect for them, Explosion with secondary device with white powder release, it was chlorine. I got 20 or so pics of the 609 I have, posted on my page. We were hopping they would bring in the feds but they seemed to want to simulate everything, not good when everyone else is playing. Oh well we had fun.
-
Permalink Reply by Ni on
-
I guess Calling a really good lawyer for pending lawsuit isn't an valid answer here huh?
Well what everyone else has said here, I think I would do the same thing, Set up attack lines on the corners and begin rescue operations.
-
Permalink Reply by joeknipp on
-
after careful assessment of the structure. and assuming the structure scenario is safe. my first responding company would do scene safety and secure the structure as best as possible. my second in would be deployed in search and rescue. and the 3rd responding would be deployed with hand lines incase fire breaks out. then my first responding will become my rit team.
-
Permalink Reply by Chris on
-
Ben,
I can understand your concern relating to structural engineers, but me being one I am going shed some light on some of things that you brought up.
The structural engineer has an obligation just as anyone in the fire service does. If you are IC sends someone into a burning structure when they should be in defensive operations he would have to answer some questions to the higher ups, the city or borough, and maybe even NIOSH if that person gets hurt or killed.
A professional structural engineer (meaning that he or she is licensed, PE) has somewhat of the same obligation to the state that he is licensed in and so forth. So maybe he is telling you rescue is not a option and maybe in your case as you mentioned he was wrong. I don't know too many guys in the fire and rescue service that understand everything when comes down to building construction or engineering for that matter unless you do it for a living or on your days off (if you are a career firefighter). If I said to you what is section modulus, moment of inertia, or a bending moment. You probably say what the hell are those things and that you don't care. That is some of the basic laws of structural engineering. Which are important especially if a structural member is being over stressed. I am not saying that all structural engineers use common sense or are right all the time and neither is a firefighter, chief officer, rescue technician, or anyone else in emergency services. Do you want to know why? It is because we are human and it is simple as that.
Why do you say that your USAR team is lucky that you don't have a structural engineer? That would probably be your best one to bring in if you could. First of all they take the structural collapse technician course offered by FEMA and they take a class with the Army Corp. of Engineers for being a structural specialist. Don't you think FEMA has this position for a reason? I think they have an idea on what is going on since they have their own training programs and manuals relating to the subject of structural collapse.
Your next best resource would be someone who is in the fire/rescue service that is a architectural engineer or a structural engineer. Another would be a forensic structural engineer.
You need resources like this on collapse incident or someone will get hurt and bad. Just like on a structure box we need our resources.
I hope I didn't come off like a jerk, just trying educate thats all..
Chris R.
I will post my command strategy later today or tomorrow.......
-
-
Chris, please re-read my post. You misinterpreted what I said. I didn't say that my team is lucky that we don't have a structural engineer.
We're lucky because we have a neighboring department with a chief officer who is educated as an architect/engineer, as our team isn't authorized the engineering position. The chief of whom I spoke understands both the engineering factors and the emergency response factors involved in structural design, construction, and collapse.
I'm not a structural engineer and I don't pretend to understand all of the lingo, but I do understand risk assessments on buildings that are damaged by gravity, fire, vehicle impacts, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes...all things to which I've responded in my career. I also understand how to minimize and manage risk. Chris Naum can tell you that I'm a major proponent of responder safety, comprehensive incident management and risk management, and of bringing common sense to the scene.
In the incident above, if I had a FEMA-trained engineer/structures specialist, I'd use him/her, but the fact is that I'm 4 to 6 hours from having that kiind of help. There's no way I'm going to wait 4 to 6 hours to determine if there's a need for rescue, particularly if I have the tools to do the size-up and a lot of the rescue without putting my people unnecessarily at risk. And...if I'm in Command, I'm going to make the entry/no entry decision after I listen to the engineer and my size-up team, but make no mistake about it....I, not the engineer will make the decision.
-
-
Ben,
I am sorry that I miss read your post. I am not saying that you (if you are in command) shouldn't make the decision on the go or no go for a rescue operation. It is not the engineers call I totally 100% agree with you. He or she is there as a technical advisor to the command staff and should not be making those decisions at all..I have served on both sides of the table. The company I work for specializes in forensic and structural engineering, but we never make the "command" decisions we let the IC determine that we just give our professional advice and thats it.
I was not doubting your years on the job, I can tell you are a man of knowledge by reading your posts, and I was not trying to be a jerk, but I think it is very important to have that resource on the incident like this not just because I am one.
I am sorry again for my miss reading...
- Chris
-
-
No problem...
I've just run into too many engineers that had no clue on a collapse rescue and wanted to do a 6-month remediation project prior to attempting quick, easy light debris-removal rescues. The non collapse-trained engineers outnumber the USAR-trained ones by a large margin. I have a thing for rescuing viable victims with practical rescue efforts, but based on a risk-benefit analysis.
I take the safety of those under my command very seriously, and I don't plan to ever change that philosophy.
-
-
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.
-
-
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.
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
