# Residential Fire/ff death



## fireguy (Feb 15, 2012)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/story/2012-02-15/los-angeles-firefighter-death/53110684/1?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomNation-TopStories+%28News+-+Nation+-+Top+Stories%29&partner=skygrid


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## fireguy (Feb 15, 2012)

Can't beat that Mark guy.


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## fatboy (Feb 15, 2012)

nah, he's pretty spot on......must have 10 news feeds into his system...........


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## oldman57 (Feb 16, 2012)

The Fox new story indicated that the home was completed. So what I don't understand is how did the inspectors miss the fireplace on the third floor and why they are not also being held accountable?


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## Frank (Feb 16, 2012)

An ironic twist is that the reported cause of the ceiling collapse was the failure of a plastic sprinkler pipe dumping water on top of the ceiling.

I am not aware of any other cases where the fact that the building was sprinklered was a contributing factor in a firefighter line of duty death.

I would be interested in seeing a NIST, NFPA or similar report on this incident.


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## beach (Feb 16, 2012)

> The Fox new story indicated that the home was completed. So what I don't understand is how did the inspectors miss the fireplace on the third floor and why they are not also being held accountable?


Read this story:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-firefighter-killed-20120216,0,512896.story


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## Papio Bldg Dept (Feb 16, 2012)

...maybe we need austerity measures for german architects practicing in the United States.


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## conarb (Feb 16, 2012)

Note that the original articles blamed the plastic sprinkler line, now they are blaming the illegal fireplace, not even mentioning that it was a plastic sprinkler line that melted causing the collapse.  What I'm curious about is what caused the collapse?  Normally if water ponded in a ceiling the sheetrock or plaster would come down, not the whole ceiling structure, we all know that lightweight roof trusses collapse in fires, I wonder if he used lightweight floor trusses?  There is no mention of this so far but I wonder.

I also wonder if the fires service is going to start campaigning to ban plastic pipe in sprinkler systems for their protection? We have heard "Sprinklers save lives" for so long, and we now going to hear "Sprinklers kill firemen"?


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## conarb (Feb 16, 2012)

From the same paper at the time of the fire:



			
				LA Times said:
			
		

> Fire crews use a chain saw to cut their way to the injured firefighter,  who was engulfed by debris when a ceiling collapsed. Water collecting  from a damaged sprinkler line may have caused the structure to fail.¹


¹ http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/18/local/la-me-firefighter-20110218


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## oldman57 (Feb 16, 2012)

Thanks, a more detailed article.


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## beach (Feb 16, 2012)

Personally, I can't comment because I don't know all of the facts...... how much was bootlegged after C of O, etc.

But we can always wonder....



> Unknown to the firefighters, a fire suppression sprinkler line broke or melted


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