About 30 seconds after the last firefighter emerged from a burning Weston house several years ago, the floor he had been standing on collapsed behind him with a whoosh, reports wausaudailyherald.com.
South Area Fire and Emergency Response District Chief Steve Meilahn remembers standing in the basement of that home after the fire was out, among the furniture that had occupied the first floor before it collapsed. When he looked up, he could see clothes still hanging in an intact closet above.
The floor collapse remains etched in Meilahn’s memory as an important safety reminder, and illustrates one of the challenges firefighters are adapting to as new building construction moves quickly toward dependence on glued-together products and less on solid wood.
Firefighters have always adapted to new building techniques, Meilahn said, and increasingly popular “lightweight construction” is only the most recent. The building method, which is less expensive, is great for consumers, builders and architects, he said. But it can make a structure less sturdy when it catches on fire because the materials do not hold up as well as traditional wooden beams in the heat and the flames.
That means that homeowners need to take precautions to ensure that they can escape quickly, and that firefighters need to be ready for fires that can go from safe to catastrophic in a heartbeat.
“This is a wonderful technology and a safe technology — until you put fire with it,” Meilahn said.
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