Hello and welcome to the introduction to primary search! Whether you are a seasoned firefighter or just beginning your career, I hope you will find this information useful.
This introductory material is meant to lay the foundation for more detailed technical topics that we will be discussing on this website in Methodology and Analysis sections. Even if you are a veteran of the fire service, I strongly encourage you to read this intro as you might find some important life-saving principles that were only recently introduced in response to the tragedies that happened to other firefighters.
Overall, this website is designed to share the information on how to conduct a primary search safer and faster in modern fires. The full set of information is available in my book called "Primary search tactics, strategy and culture". Here we will discuss most important fundamental principles as well as the new research results that surfaced after the book has been published.
This introduction consists of three logical parts:
- In part one I will provide and discuss the most important definitions related to primary search. This is part of my systematic approach. You can't solve a difficult problem without first understanding what the problem is. This is what definitions are for.
- In part two I will cover 10 fundamental principles that you should adopt if you want to be safe and efficient in conducting (and teaching) primary search.
- In part three I will paint you a bigger picture about where the primary search is relative to other firefighting disciplines. No worries, this will be the shortest part!
You can jump between the topics if you want, but I would recommend reading in that particular sequence as things will be clearer then. For your convenience, I will provide "Next" button at the end of each topic so that you can easily go to the text block of information.