WPI Engineers Working To Build Safer Hoses For Firefighters

BOSTON (CBS) - Two new reports were released Thursday on the Back Bay fire two years ago that killed two Boston firefighters.

Lieutenant Edward Walsh and firefighter Michael Kennedy died when they were trapped in the basement of a brownstone in a 9-alarm fire on Beacon Street.

The burned hose that Kennedy was using is the subject of some major research at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Fire Protection Engineering facility.

"We really have a call. We need more data," said engineer Ray Ranellone.

Armed with a grant from the Last Call Foundation headed by Kennedy's mother, Ranellone and a team of researchers are gathering hose burn statistics.

They're trying to get the word out for as many firefighters as possible to fill out a 20 question online survey.

So far, they've mapped 170 incidents where hoses burned across the country.

"Every failure is something different. There's all different modes of failure, whether the fire hose came in contact with something hot, direct flame exposure, hot gases passing over the hose, they've all contributed to fire hose failure," said Ranellone.

WPI engineers plan to use the data they're gathering to develop safer equipment aimed at preventing burns in fire hoses.