If you are still not convinced that you should adopt a new approach to primary search because you think that I am trying to “fight the fires while wearing a lab coat”, let me try to convince you otherwise.

First of all, I wear my bunker gear and SCBA every day, because I train that often.

Secondly, I, from my own experience, know that firefighting is a form of combat and in combat our capacity to perform complex tasks is reduced to nearly zero. No matter how experienced, tough, smart or talented you might think you are, the truth is that our common physiology reduces us to a basic animal level when we are subjected to a significant combat stress. So I know that overcomplicated methods of navigation will simply not work in real fires.

Exactly because of this reason I have ruthlessly rejected some of the search methods. I did it not because the math was not favorable for them, but because they just could not be reliably executed when the building is burning around you – they were just too complex to be combat-reliable.

I only teach the methods that are both efficient in theory and usable in practice, even under significant stress. My goal is your survival and survival of the civilians you are trying to save, not writing a dissertation on how to save people.

Next: Primary search as navigation