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Firefighters’ Strategies for Processing Spatial Information During Emergency Rescue Searches

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Information in Contemporary Society (iConference 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11420))

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Abstract

Firefighters face a unique wayfinding situation when they are in emergency situations. This study aims to examine the strategies that firefighters use when in an emergency situation to provide insights for future research. In this study, we interview 12 firefighters from three regions of the US to understand the navigation strategies they use during rescue missions.

After analyzing the results using grounded theory as a basis, we found that firefighters use various navigational strategies that serve one of four purposes, (1) to build a path, (2) to improve vision, (3) to create a cognitive map, and (4) to make directional decisions. From here, we hope to link these unique navigational purposes to actual tools that can help firefighters save lives.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Julia Cope

  2. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA

    Marco Arias

  3. Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

    DeAndre’ Williams

  4. La Roche College, Pittsburgh, USA

    Cristina Bahm

  5. Oakwood University, Huntsville, USA

    Vusumuzi Ngwazini

  6. iSchool Inclusion Institute, Pittsburgh, USA

    Julia Cope, Marco Arias, DeAndre’ Williams, Cristina Bahm & Vusumuzi Ngwazini

Authors
  1. Julia Cope
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  2. Marco Arias
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  3. DeAndre’ Williams
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  4. Cristina Bahm
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  5. Vusumuzi Ngwazini
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Bahm .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Natalie Greene Taylor

  2. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Caitlin Christian-Lamb

  3. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Michelle H. Martin

  4. University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Bonnie Nardi

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Cope, J., Arias, M., Williams, D., Bahm, C., Ngwazini, V. (2019). Firefighters’ Strategies for Processing Spatial Information During Emergency Rescue Searches. In: Taylor, N., Christian-Lamb, C., Martin, M., Nardi, B. (eds) Information in Contemporary Society. iConference 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_66

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_66

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15741-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15742-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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