Incident Commands Systems Unit IV Case Study

On March 4, 2012 a Wisconsin police officer, whom was also a fire chief in a neighboring community, reported a theater fire that would ultimately lead to the loss of life of one of his own firefighters (Wertman, 2012). The initial response to the fire included the local volunteer fire department as well as a volunteer fire department from a neighboring community. The theatre consisted of a large building with a bowstring trussed roof, which had heavy smoke visible upon the arrival of firefighting crews (Wertman, 2012). The local fire department set up operations at the front of the theatre as the second arriving department from the neighboring community established operations at the rear of the building (Wertman, 2012). The first arriving department eventually switched from an offensive fire attack to a defensive attack; however the second arriving department continued to use an offensive attack in attempt to control the fire (Wertman, 2012). The two individual departments each established their own separate command and neither maintained effective radio communication with the other (Wertman, 2012). The bowstring trussed roof eventually collapsed trapping three firefighters from the second arriving department, an accident that when complete, claimed the life of one of the trapped firefighters (Wertman, 2012). As is often the cases with tragic accidents on the fire ground such as this, indicators existed but was ignored regarding the potential of a serious accident.

A number of factors within this incident contributed to the injuries and death of a firefighter. Two opposing operations took place during this incident, as no incident command system or incident action plan was established to ensure that all fireground personnel were ...

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...tives as set forth. The failure to use proven safety measures as well as understanding and observation of building construction features, can easily lead to an accident similar to that of the Wisconsin theatre fire.

References

Pindelski, J. (2010). Do you know where they are? The dangers of the bowstring truss roof [Entire issue]. Health and safety for fire and emergency service personnel, 21(5). Retrieved from http://www.fdsoa.org/news/getpdf.htm?file=/www/docs/fdsoa/pdfs/membersonly/articles/past_articles/2010_05_newsletter.pdf

Smith, J. P. (2012). Strategic and tactical considerations on the fireground (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Prentice Hall.

Wertman, S. C. (2012). Volunteer lieutenant killed and two fire fighters injured following bowstring roof collapse at theatre fire-Wisconsin (F2012-08). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/pdfs/face201208.pdf