A plywood floor-collapse training platform with a rectangular opening, ringed by cones, beside a grey training building with an exterior stair to a lower door, under an overcast sky.

Section

Lessons

What the fire service has learned from line-of-duty deaths, injuries and close calls, and how departments put those lessons to work.

A folding command table under a canopy at dusk holds a blank tactical worksheet, a stand of colored accountability tags and two radios, with a large windowless commercial building out of focus behind it.

Deep Dive

Charleston, almost 20 years on: what the Sofa Super Store fire changed

Nine Charleston firefighters died on June 18, 2007. The investigations that followed reshaped how that department runs its fires. The model codes require sprinklers in new furniture stores, and South Carolina turned down Charleston's request to require more.

Deep Dive

Lessons from NIOSH F2026-01: Eight Monday-Morning Fixes for Basement Fires in Vacant Buildings

NIOSH's investigation of a floor collapse that injured four career firefighters at an abandoned residential fire lists eight contributing factors; each one points to something a department can check, train, or change this week.