Adam Hansen ’05, ’20 MPA still remembers when Eddie Ramos, a firefighter in his hometown of Branford, was killed in a warehouse fire on Thanksgiving Day in 1996 when the roof collapsed on him. The structure was built with truss-type construction, consisting of a triangle or an organization of triangles that enables the building’s roof to support heavy loads, such as snow.
The problem, however, is that when this type of construction is exposed to fire, it can fail within approximately ten minutes.
When Hansen was working on a briefing memo to address a problem in the public domain for his “Principles of Public Administration” class, he knew that he wanted to focus on preventing deaths like Ramos’s.
“I chose a topic I was very passionate about,” said Hansen, a Milford Fire Department lieutenant who studied fire science as an undergraduate at the University. “Many states dictate that any new building with truss construction in the roof or flooring assembly has to mark it at the front main entrance. That way, firefighters will see that before they enter the building.”