Urban Search and Rescue and Structural Collapse:It's Everyone's Job to Know

摘要

WHEN FIREFIGHTERS THINK ABOUT structural collapse from an urban search and rescue (US&R) perspective, it's easy to consider incidents such as the 1994 Northridge earthquake or man-made explosions like the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. However, a basic knowledge of structural collapse does matter whether you're attached to a big Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) US&R team or a rookie firefighter riding a rescue or an engine all day. If a tornado hits a trailer park and your crew is the first on scene, pulling up to mobile homes strewn in a pile, you just became the world's smallest US&R squad! Of course, collapse knowledge also matters in fire situations. For example, the tendency of floor truss systems to deteriorate quickly under extreme heat can turn a routine single-family residential house fire into a potential collapse situation. Structures specialists are licensed structural engineers who have received additional US&R training from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA. They normally support heavy rescue teams and function as advisors when the teams are performing search and rescue inside of damaged buildings. However, the insights they provide to those teams can be useful to all firefighters regardless of in which seat or vehicle they ride.