Since it was a frigid 40 degrees this morning in Florida, we realized that our brothers elsewhere in the world must be still dealing with quite a bit of snow. Snow loading is something we had never even heard of, let alone considered on any fireground down here. As a result, we are going to turn this post over to some folks who obviously know much more about this they we ever could: Deputy Chief Sean Toomey and Bill Greenwood. A special thanks goes out to them for allowing us to share this information.
Click here for an article written by Lt. Bill Greenwood from Keene (NH) Fire and FETC Services regarding roof snow loads. It discusses some tactical implications of operating under a snow loaded roof, and even explains the differences between warm and cold roofs.
Click here for an info sheet used by Concord (NH) Fire that includes instruction on how to assess and calculate a roof loads to determine collapse potential. This simple sampling and assessment process was developed by Concord’s Deputy Chief Sean Toomey, who happens to be a fire protection engineer.
The video below shows exactly how much of a hazard snow loads can be on the fireground.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/_JbjbMAY4_Y&rel=0]
Stay safe (and warm) out there in the snow brothers!
I think I died a little inside reading “frigid 40 degrees”. 24 degrees in Michigan and I didn’t even bother putting on a coat
DAMN!!! What horrible timing, he was probably looking at that bank of snow and thinking “Please give me a few more minutes.” At least it didn’t happen when the victims got on the ladder. In other news – man has this website fallen off a cliff.