Decision-making
Emergency professionals are tasked with high-stakes judgment calls: when to evacuate, which containment strategy to employ, which resources to request. These decisions are highly complex, with conflicting information and time pressure. Even afterwards, it can be impossible to tell a good decision from a lucky one.
Making Better Emergency Decisions
Connecting behavioral science and operational decision-makers.
Emergent Risk Management led a discussion paper and webinar series on emergency decision quality. This project drew on behavioral science, the study of judgment under uncertainty. Developed with researchers from the Canadian Forest Service, it introduces a new category of decision tools into fire management.
Read the paper co-authored with Kelvin Hirsch (retired Forest Research Director, Canadian Forest Service) and Mike Wotton (Research Scientist, Canadian Forest Service), and presented across Canada and the US, including the International Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference, Canada Wildfire, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, and APEGA, the largest professional organization in Western Canada.