In a fire suppression operation, seconds can mean the difference between a fatality or successful incident management. There have not been many recent studies that examine the information, tools, and technologies firefighters rely upon to gather facts about the incident scene before arrival. We conducted an international, web-based survey in which 50 firefighters of varying ranks characterized the benefits and challenges of using pre-incident plans, documents that assist firefighters in understanding information about a facility during an emergency. Our analysis showed that despite demographic differences in regions and the size of the population served, most departments reported severe challenges in accessing and retrieving planning information. Based upon participant feedback, we shed light on the problems with existing user interfaces and provide a path forward for the human factors community to build robust technology for first responders operating in dangerous and unpredictable environments.
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