Fireground Decisions
The call drops at 0247. What you do next is the training.
Branching scenarios built from real incident lessons. You ride the seat, make the calls, watch the consequences play out — then debrief every decision against the standards. Free, no account.
214 Hickory Lane
Single-family dwelling, occupants reported · Firefighter / Company Officer
A 0247 house fire with people possibly still inside, a hydrant 300 feet away, and help four minutes out. Bread and butter — which is exactly why it kills people.
412 Ridgeway — fire below you
Two-story wood frame, smoke from the eaves, 2140 · Company Officer
Nothing showing from the front but smoke at the eaves and a warm floor. Basement fires kill firefighters who never figured out the fire was underneath them until the floor told them.
Building C, apartment 312
Garden apartment, wind at your back, 1455 · Company Officer
Twenty-five mile-an-hour wind, a failed window on the windward side, and a public hallway. The flow path will decide this fire before any of your tactics do — unless you decide first.
Northgate Plaza, Unit 4
Commercial strip mall, smoke showing, 0410 · Company Officer / Incident Commander
Smoke from a closed row of storefronts at four in the morning. Nobody's inside. That fact should change every decision you make — and for a lot of officers, it doesn't.
County Road 9 — no hydrant, no help
Working barn fire, exposure to the house, 1830 · Company Officer / Incident Commander
A hundred-foot barn well involved, a farmhouse forty feet away, and the nearest hydrant is four miles into town. Rural firefighting is a water problem wearing a fire problem's clothes.
The old mill — Mayday
Heavy timber conversion, member down, 0217 · Incident Commander
A firefighter goes on the air with a Mayday and the whole incident changes shape in four seconds. Most officers have never practiced the next ninety.
County Road 9 at Miller
Two-vehicle MVC, entrapment, one ejected · Company Officer / Lead Medic
Two cars, three patients, one of them thrown clear. You have four sets of hands, a twenty-eight minute drive to the trauma center, and a helicopter that may or may not be flying.
"He just needs to sleep it off"
Unresponsive adult male, family declining transport · EMT / Paramedic
A family who has been through this before tells you their son is fine. Your assessment says otherwise. Everything that happens next turns on capacity, documentation, and whether you can tell the difference between a patient's refusal and someone else's.
Welfare check, 118 Larkspur
Wellness check that becomes a barricaded subject in crisis · Patrol Officer / Field Supervisor
A sister three states away hasn't heard from her brother in four days. What starts as a knock-and-talk becomes a man in crisis behind a locked door, and the single most useful tool you have is the one nobody trains: time.
How it works
Three steps, and the third is the one that matters.
- 1
Take the dispatch.
You get what the responding officer gets: address, assignment, caller info. Nothing more.
- 2
Make the calls.
At each decision point, pick from options a real officer would weigh. The incident clock runs — hesitation and bad calls both cost time, and time changes conditions.
- 3
Debrief.
See your full decision path, what the model path was, why, and the standards behind it. The debrief is where the training happens.
For training officers
Run any scenario as an instructor-led drill.
Add ?mode=instructor to any scenario and you drive the branches instead of the trainee — scoring is hidden, because in a room the instructor does the evaluating. Open the presentation screen in a second window to display conditions to the crew while you keep the controls.
No account, no per-seat pricing, and nothing you show leaves the device.
Fireground Decisions is a training aid, not a substitute for your department's SOGs, live training, or the judgment of a qualified instructor. Tactics referenced reflect UL FSRI research, NIOSH firefighter-fatality findings, NFPA guidance, and — for EMS and law enforcement scenarios — NAEMSP, SAMHSA, and IACP material. Always defer to your AHJ and your medical director.