AUSTIN, Texas — On Monday evening, Austin firefighters responded to a fire burning at a two-story home on Camperdown Elm Drive in South Austin.
While firefighters were battling the flames, the roof of the home collapsed on four of them.
"Luckily, our firefighters were able to get themselves out of this instant, but that's not always the case, unfortunately, across America," said Rachael Lewis, the operations public information officer for the Austin Fire Department Operations.
Lewis could not share details of the firefighters' injuries, but said they have been treated and released. They have not yet returned to work.
Lewis said she has noticed some other roof collapses happen due to homes and buildings being built faster, with more lightweight construction materials.
"They're using lightweight, more resistant construction materials just to decrease the cost for the homeowner and to decrease the cost to the builder. And as those buildings get put up faster, they are less flame resistant," Lewis said. "Across America, we definitely have seen, in the past 10 years, we've seen an increase in collapsed, building collapses due to the effects of fire and firefighting efforts."
Bob Nicks, the president of the Austin Firefighters Association, said buildings are not built to make it safer for firefighters.
"My question is, why are we not talking about how to make it safe for firefighters, rather trying to talk about to make firefighters aware of the dangers? We actually have an opportunity here to make it safer for our responders and there's just no interest in that in the industry," Nicks said. "I'd love if the materials were built better and protected better so firefighters were protected more, but that's a pipe dream. That's not going to happen and the firefighters are more at risk because of that economics."
KVUE attempted to reach out to the firefighters who were injured, but we were denied.