What caught my eye is the quote from the Fire Chief: "A vacant building is not worth the life of any of my firemen and the fact that this building is quite old, rather than put anyone inside it was much easier to bring in the ladder trucks..."
I guess I agree to a certain degree. I have to admit I haven't read the story yet (kinda got the cart in front of the horse). My point is that on the last three vacant fires we've had, we went inside and put the fire out. Our evaluation was more calculated, but we were offensive on two of the three from the start, and went offensive on the third after we opened it up for egress and made sure of the fire location. If we had stood outside and let them go, we would have been there three times as long and been as much as, if not more, at risk as the joint burned down.
My point? Use your brain, not much of what we do is black and white.
OK, I just looked at the story, and they seemed to make a good call. Big joint, old, lots of fire, let it go.