A firefighter was injured Sunday morning at a fire in an abandoned textiles mill in Lincolnton, North Carolina.
The firefighter was taken to Carolinas Medical Center-Lincoln for treatment after Lincolnton Fire Chief Mitch Burgin said part of the building’s wall collapsed on the man’s face, according to the Lincoln Times-News (http://bit.ly/1dElSJo).
Initially, firefighters responded to a call for a smell of smoke inside a nearby residence, but they later determined the smoke was coming from the mill.
Drill of the Week: Structural Collapse Indicators
Firefighters located a small campfire inside the mill, which had already burned through the floor and continued to smolder in the crawl space area underneath by the time crews arrived on site.
Firefighters had been removing part of the burned area inside the structure when the wall collapsed. The injured firefighter was treated, released, and returned to work in the evening.
Read further details about this fire at http://bit.ly/1dElSJo.
Such incidents such as this one and a Detroit firefighter who was hurt at a industrial site collapse last week point to the collapse hazards at structures due to destabilization by fire. For more on collapse training, consider Building Construction Concerns for Firefighters: Structural Collapse , Structural Collapse Under Fire Conditions, and Construction Concerns for Firefighters: Structural Collapse.
