A Delaware firefighter who was seriously burned when he fell through the floor battling a house fire in March was among several firefighters wearing improper gear during the incident, a state agency's investigation determined.
The Delaware State Fire School's 87-page report also found that other firefighters disobeyed orders to leave the burning Mill Creek house and weren't familiar with equipment used at the scene, according to The News Journal in Wilmington.
The Mill Creek Fire Company asked the fire school to conduct the investigation as a way to shed light on the challenges crews encountered during the fire. A department spokesman told The News Journal that the report wasn't meant to assign blame in the incident. On March 14, Minquas Capt. David Smiley Jr., 23, fell through the second floor while battling a three-story house fire and suffered second- and third-degree burns over 10 percent of his body. He said in a Facebook post this week that he would be returning to Pennsylvania's Lebanon Fire Company in October.