This seems to be a significant oversight on a Standard Operating Protocol (SOP).  Should this not have part of their routine training scheduled (annual) training protocol?  Post training; validation, checked off and signed off by firefighters.  I would presume that this would have been a precautionary measure (know or unknown absestos contained within).  Subsequently implementing the containment and clean up protocol due to the age of building.  Sadly a lot of finger pointing, regardless use this to fix the and reinforce the SOP training.