Office of the Fire Marshal

From the Office of the Fire Marshal, have a happy and safe 4th of July!

CHAPTER 12 Floor Battlespaces Floors are the platform on which Firefighters launch an interior hoseline attack. Without a stable floor, Firefighters cannot sear...ch or advance hoselines. An important study conducted by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) examining parts of a structure that killed Firefighters during the years 1990 to 1999 discovered the following: 1. There were 56 Firefighter fatalities from collapse. 2. Twenty-one from floor collapse 3. Nineteen from roof collapse 4. Fourteen from wall collapse 5. Two from ceiling collapse More recently, another study conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on structure collapse and Firefighter fatalities from 1979 to 2002 discovered the following: 1. Percentage of structure collapse occurring in residence buildings is increasing, even though incidents are decreasing overall. 2. Instead of being killed when struck by a blunt force or object, Firefighters are being caught and trapped by fire after structure failure. 3. The majority of collapse deaths occurred during fire attack. So thinking about these two studies by NFPA and NIST, a Firefighter might assume the following: A collapse may occur in a residence building fire, during an interior fire attack. It may be a floor collapse and you may be caught and trapped by fire, smoke or parts of the fallen structure. Tragically, this was the case when Firefighter Kevin Apuzzio, of East Franklin, N.J., Station 27, and three brother firefighters were pulling a trapped unconscious woman to safety on April 11, 2006. Firefighters must know as much as possible about the floor construction, the battlespace that is critical for successful interior rescue and fire attack. A dependable floor is required for Firefighters to launch a search and hose attack. Kevin Apuzzio, RIP