Last December, the world witnessed the solemn, dignified and sad memorial service for the Worcester Six, who tragically met their deaths in an abandoned cold storage warehouse.

Their families, friends and area fire officials will be reminded frequently of this preventable and unnecessary loss of life. The memory that the rest of the country has of this tragedy will fade, however, though it will be revived the next time a similar incident takes place. These firefighters' deaths are simply part of the United States' position of leading the free world in firefighter and civilian deaths and injuries, fire loss, incidence of fire, and the cost of fire protection.

Did the Worcester Six die in vain? Will the fire service and general public continue to accept deaths like these as a necessary part of doing business? Why did these firefighters die, and who is responsible?

Worcester just happened to be the municipality that experienced this tragedy. Vacant and unsecured buildings exist throughout the United States in the urban centers, suburbia and even rural communities. Vacant buildings can become the venues of numerous activities that are contrary to the good of the community, from squatting to drug use and sex crimes. They're breeding grounds for vermin and murder. Nothing good comes from vacant buildings unless they're renovated to code or demolished.

First off, building owners have to be held accountable for their structures. The building must meet the applicable codes with regard to occupancy type, and if it's vacant it must be secured and not become a nuisance in the community. Access can be denied by locked iron gates or access openings sealed with concrete blocks.

If the building is beyond repair, it should be razed and removed. Should the building owner fail to remove the hazard after being properly notified, the authority having jurisdiction should take legal action to do so. This shifts the burden onto the court system to rectify the illegal conditions.

In Worcester, the two homeless people who are alleged to have set the fire have been arrested and charged with six counts of manslaughter. If they were illegally occupying the building and started the fire, yes, they should be held accountable, but are they convenient scapegoats?

Has the building owner been investigated for having a noncompliant building? It has been reported that he wants to donate the site for a memorial to the Worcester Six because it's now consecrated ground. But did the owner's negligence cause it to become consecrated ground?

Second, when these types of incidents occur, is there accountability on the part of local building or health officials for not doing their duty if the codes prohibit the illegal use and occupancy of buildings because of zoning or structural conditions? Is there a paper trail documenting efforts to abate the problem?

Turning one's head and hoping that nothing happens is a dangerous game of Russian roulette. Are the slum and illegal building owners in your jurisdiction allowed to practice non-compliance? If the legal system fails to deal with the code-compliance issue, then the decision has been made to allow these conditions to exist.

Next, does law enforcement have a responsibility to refer these code violations to the authority having jurisdiction, notify building owners of activities occurring in the building, and force the illegal occupants out of the building or arrest them for illegally occupying it? Does the fire prevention bureau have any code enforcement responsibilities? Are politicians doing their jobs and insisting that slum landlords be dealt with, or are they just turning their heads on urban blight?

(There's a misperception by some that these vacant buildings pay taxes, and that the tax base is reduced if these buildings are removed. This might be the case to a minor extent, but many times the land is more valuable for economic development if it's vacant than if a dilapidated structure sits there.)

Because firefighters' lives are at stake, a fire department must have strategies for dealing with unsafe and abandoned buildings.

To begin with, the fire department should refer to the local government agency having jurisdiction a detailed analysis of those vacant, unsecured buildings that appear to be structurally unsound and those with obvious code violations or conditions that present unnecessary hazards to firefighters.

These conditions should be well documented with video, photographs and text and should be shared with fire department personnel to ensure their awareness of these hazards. A lack of action by the code enforcement agency having jurisdiction should generate repeat referrals until the problem is corrected.

A preplan program for unsafe buildings would include an analysis of exposures, the required and deliverable fire flow for the building and exposures, and especially all structural deficiencies: open shafts and skylights, missing stairs, removed structural components, punky roofs, evidence of use by homeless and other indicators of conditions that are unsafe for firefighters. These preplans should be reviewed frequently with fire personnel and be kept in apparatus for instant referral, not in the fire station filing cabinet.

A public information program using the news media can convey the message locally that these vacant and unsecured buildings contribute to urban blight, drag down property values, and can be havens for crime and killers of firefighters. The City of La Crosse, Wis., used this approach, and it was the lead story on the local evening news right after Worcester. Within several days, the buildings were removed and in their places were vacant lots, which will serve as fire breaks should fires occur in adjacent buildings.

Maybe it's time the fire service updated the old firemark system to placard buildings that are unsafe for firefighters to enter. If an evaluation determined that a building was too dangerous for firefighters to enter, a nationally recognized symbol could be affixed above the front entrance as a "Do Not Enter" reminder to firefighters. The building owner and the insurance carrier would be notified by certified mail of the fire department's intent not to enter the building for firefighting, as would local elected officials and other local agencies.

The usfa should be made aware of the need for National Fire Academy classes and specific studies to assist fire agencies with this issue. fema could be solicited to support the study of vacant buildings' impact on local fire services, including proactive strategies, structural collapse, the problems presented by buildings under renovation, firefighting tactics and strategies, and dealing with politics. (Some of these slum landlords are wired with local politicians, so strategies to deal with such situations could be detailed.) An overview of where the homeless habitate, such as the storage areas in apartments, basements and crawl spaces of churches, could be discussed. [Ed.: For some additional suggestions, see "Fire and the vacant building," November 1993, also available at .]

Starting today, fire departments can minimize their exposure in the legal and public opinion arenas by using some basic strategies. Does your department have an official ics program, and have all personnel been trained in its use, including chief officers? At what level of emergency is it activated, and how? Is ics training documented? Are safety-related sops up to date and consistently followed at the emergency scene?

Are critiques used for their significant and unique value in system improvement, and not for assigning blame? Is protective clothing, including scba and pass devices, always worn in the manner intended? What is your personnel accountability system, is it used and could it stand serious evaluation? These are only some very basic activities that need to be reviewed.

The fire service can't bring the Worcester Six back to life, but we can minimize the chance of such a tragedy happening again. That legacy would be an honorable tribute to those men, who left the service before their time. Their deaths were tragic, but it would be tragedy compounded if the fire service failed to learn from their deaths.