Skip navigation links BFS 3440-07B BUILDING CONSTRUCTION FOR FIRE Essay - 2

Skip navigation links BFS 3440-07B BUILDING CONSTRUCTION FOR FIRE PROTECTION (BFS3440-07B) - Essay Example Bearing walls hold or bears the load of the structure; the load of the structure is transferred to the bearing wall from the floor joists and the roof rafters. Nonbearing walls are non load bearing support elements that serves the function of supporting the weight of itself and they do not bear or hold the load of the structure and they are generally used for partitioning an area in a building. As a result of the function of the bearing wall in a building, its failure can result in the catastrophic collapse of the building it supports, whereas the collapse of the non-bearing wall has little or no effect on the structure of the building as they only support their own weight and do not hold the weight of the building in any form. A fire fighter in fighting a fire must devise a tactic to identify the load-bearing walls and be aware of the dangers that are associated with the failure of the bearing walls (Wallace, 2001). A non-bearing wall is easier to build than bearing walls, a fire fighter must be aware of the fact that non-bearing wall are more likely to be destroyed by fire and could cause the spread of fire; hence they must try to first quench fire from non-bearing walls in the event of an outbreak to prevent the spread of fire and make sure that fire do not spread to the bearing walls as its collapse would bring about a catastrophic destruction of the