Fire‐Related Roof Collapse: Case Study

On the morning of October 2, 1982, a fire broke out at an abandoned training facility on an army base in Boston, Massachusetts. While firemen were fighting the fire from the roof, the roof collapsed, shearing the roof trusses away from the columns, and falling straight down leaving all the walls standing. Three firemen were permanently disabled, while others sustained injuries of varying severity. Because of the extra‐ordinary mechanism of collapse, an investigation into the probable causes of collapse was undertaken. The building had been cleaned up immediately after the fire and no physical evidence existed, except for some photographs that were taken by an arson‐squad investigator some hours after the fire. The investigation, which was begun in October of 1987, showed that the building had been moved in the late 1950s. Without any opportunity to investigate the building after the collapse, a case was made that the building had not been constructed properly, either originally or after the move, and that most likely the collapse occurred because some shear rings had been left out. After one day in court, the Federal Government settled.