HIDDEN FIRE AND COLLAPSE
by Francis L. Brannigan, SFPE
In my last column (August 1995), I discussed the deaths of four firefighters who possibly may have been saved if there had been proper preplanning. In the Seattle tragedy,1 summarized below, it is most likely that preplanning at the level carried out by most fire departments would not have uncovered the alteration in the structure responsible for four fatalities when the floor on which they had been working collapsed into the basement raging with fire. Additions had been made to the 95-year-old Mary Pang Food Products warehouse building, which also was buried in the earth 70 years ago, when the street level was raised. The former one-story building became the basement of a two-story building. The existence of the basement was unknown. This led to confusion on the fireground with regard to the locations of units. A firefighter felt the concrete topping over the wood floor and found it to be hot. Assuming that it was the basement floor, he decided to ask the lieutenant about it after the fire.
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