Mutual Aid call to commercial building fire . Upon our arrival, we had
a moderate smoke condition. The first due dept. had advised us to
stretch our hose lines to the rear of the building and advance from the
rear. Once inside we found that most fire was in the ceiling or roof
area. The part that bothers me is that being a mutual aid call we did
not know the buildings construction features or hazards. Anyway, we
were inside for about 15 minutes when I had commented to one of my guys
we should back out and fight it from the front door with a 2.5 line
with 1-1/4 tip, because the 1-3/4 lines that flow 160 gpm were not
extinguishing the hidden fire , we would knock it down then would come
back. We knew where the fire was because we had a thermal imaging
camera inside and could see the hot spot. I had advised our guys to
stay in the doorway that led to the room to the outside. The other team
with the T.I.C. went to the 2nd floor to see if they could get at the
fire from there. that is when the roof fell it was a localized collapse
but any way it still to close. At first I thought it was the team on
the 2nd floor that fell through but it was not-it had only been a
portion of the roof. It seems like all of the close calls are mutual
aid calls where we get there after the 20 minute mark and now days with
light weight building construction we don’t have that option. This
building was built with arched roof construction not bow string trusses
and had been remodeled and added on creating many void spaces. Being
the officer in charge of my crews inside I realy wonder why we stayed
in so long, or for that matter why we went in at all. This is in short
what happened.