What is the recommended time to spend on maintaining a building during a structural collapse?

• A. 5-10 minutes
• B. 1-2 hours
• C. 30-60 minutes
• D. 2-3 minutes

Answer: (A)

The main idea is to perform a rapid, focused stabilization to keep the area from moving while you proceed with search and rescue. In a collapse, you want to secure the near-term hazards quickly, then shift attention to locating and extracting victims. Five to ten minutes is long enough to establish basic stabilization—set up stable contact points, cribbing or wedges as needed, and make a safe access path—without unnecessarily prolonging exposure to the danger or delaying rescue.

Spending much less time, like a couple of minutes, usually isn’t enough to create meaningful stabilization. Conversely, extending stabilization to half an hour, an hour, or more would unnecessarily keep rescuers near unstable debris and increase the risk of a secondary collapse or entrapment, while delaying victim access.