Real-Life Decision Making
"During a fire, our number one priority is to protect the safety of people,
homes and property. The second priority is to control the spread of it," says
Frank Trenholn, an instructor of firefighting.
Keeping this in mind, firefighters must be prepared to make decision after
decision during an emergency. They don't have time to contemplate the situation
-- the decisions must be made immediately. Lives and property are at stake.
When fighting a fire, firefighters have to decide which methods
to use to bring water to a fire. They may use pumping units, where water is
pumped in from nearby streams or creeks. Or they may use helicopters to haul
in water. The helicopters may pour the water into huge reservoir tanks, from
which the water is then pumped and used. Or the helicopters may dump the water
directly on the fire. Firefighters may even wear backpacks containing small
pumps, depending on what's needed at the time.
You're a firefighter, and you've been called in to fight a medium-sized
forest fire.
The fire is on a south slope, and you know there's usually less water found
on south slopes. You can't drive a vehicle anywhere near the fire, which means
you have to be prepared to walk and carry whatever you need.
You have two basic choices:
You could set up a series of large pumps on top of the hill, and run hoses
from them to the fire. In this manner, you could get the water directly to
the fire, even from several miles away. However, this is the dry season, and
you may not be able to operate such large pumps without them running dry.
Plus, this route will take hours to set up, time that you need to be fighting
the fire.
Or you could set up a smaller pump closer to the fire, which would require
several crewmembers to haul the pump to the site. With the smaller pump, you
wouldn't have to worry about the water supply being sucked dry, but it would
provide less water pressure with which to fight the fire.
"The object is to get in and get out as soon as you can," says Trenholn.
What do you do?