Dangers of wooden trusses to firefighters - Research Paper Example

Fire-fighters risk their lives when putting off fires in buildings that have wooden trusses. This paper will discuss the dangers of wooden trusses to fire fighters. The paper will explore the various risks involved in putting off fires in buildings that have wooden trusses. The dangers of wooden trusses to fire-fighters There are a number of dangers that wooden trusses pose to fire-fighters; these dangers may be experienced when the fire-fighters make attempts to put-off large fires. A notable danger that wooden trusses pose to fire-fighters is that they can trap the fire-fighters.

In such cases, the fire-fighters find it difficult to leave the building. As a result, a rescue operation has to be initiated in order to find the fire-fighters and save them from the building where they may be trapped. Fire-fighters who manage to escape from a building that collapses may suffer numerous injuries, which may last for a lifetime or lead to significant impairment (Pollio, 2012). It is worth noting that wooden trusses may not pose any risks to the people who occupy buildings. However, these trusses exhibit some form of weakness when there is fire, and they become extremely weak.

When there is fire, there tends to be high temperatures that may cause damages to the truss (Pollio, 2012). Since the trusses are held together using fasteners, the high temperatures may weaken the fasteners, thus leading to the failure of the entire truss that may be damaged by the weight of the building. The trusses may fall on the fire-fighters while in their attempts to put off the fire (Dunn, 2010). Some of the features of wooden trusses raise critical concerns regarding the safety of fire-fighters.

Wooden trusses tend to expose much of their surface to fire as compared to trusses made of metal. Since the wooden trusses comprise of less mass, there is a possibility that fire will consume them quickly. Moreover, wooden trusses also lose their capacity to carry loads whenever there is a fire. This also affects the metal plates that may be holding the trusses together. Therefore, wooden trusses can easily collapse when there is a fire, thus putting the lives of fire-fighters at risk. Wooden trusses also pose immense dangers to fire-fighters since they spread fire a fast rate.

When one wooden truss catches fire, there is a high probability that the fire will spread to the other trusses very fast. Thus, the spread of fire in the entire building will also be extremely fast, which means that fire-fighters may lose their lives while putting off fires (Brannigan & Corbett, 2007). The future of the materials used or change in fire-fighting tactics In the future, there should be a change in the materials used in constructing