The families of two Porterville firefighters who died in a 2020 library fire have filed a lawsuit against PPE manufactures, alleging faulty equipment.
Porterville Fire Department Capt. Ramon Figueroa, 35, and firefighter Patrick Jones, 25, died during a two-alarm blaze on Feb. 18, 2020, in a library that was intentionally set.
The lawsuit is seeking financial damages from the companies that produce the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and their personal alert safety systems (PASS). Named in the lawsuit are Scott Technologies, 3M Company, Municipal Emergency Services and Allstar Fire Equipment, according to The Fresno Bee.
The suit alleges their SCBA stopped working soon after they made entry into the burning structure.
The attorney for the families claims the SCBA should last 40 minutes and only lasted about 12 minutes.
In addition to the SCBA failure, the suit alleges failure of the PASS device and made allegations that there had been similar failures of their devices prior to the deaths of Figueroa and Jones.
Firehouse.com News
Content curated and written by Firehouse editorial staff, including Susan Nicol, Steven Shaw, Peter Matthews, Ryan Baker and Rich Dzierwa.
