The use of flying-squads in the operation of municipal fire suppression activities

This study is concerned with the use of "Flying squads" in municipal fire departments. Specifically, the research effort involves development of a mathematical model and solution procedure for the optimum use of flying squads as manpower transport vehicles.

The exact problem considered in this thesis is that of determining (a) the number of flying squads to use, (b) the locations/allocations of each flying squad, (c) the deployment strategy of each squad, and (d) the size of each squad and the job skill levels of each member of the squads. In formulating the model, the opinions of professionals in the field, as gathered through a written survey, were utilized to develop the appropriate constraints and objective function.

The objective function minimizes an estimate of the cost to society which includes the estimated fire losses and the cost of operating flying squads. The model involves constraints associated with (a) the maximum response time, (b) the potential demand for fire services, (c) the workload of a flying squad, and (d) the maximum number of squads to have.

The mathematical model developed is a mixed integer programming problem having a similar structure to the Capacitated Warehouse Location Problem. A Branch and Bound type algorithm based on previous work by Akinc and Khumawala is developed to solve the problem. An example of this problem as it actually exists in the Roanoke Virginia Fire Department is modeled and solved.

The results obtained from this study demonstrates that flying squads have a potential use as an alternative method of manning the companies in municipal fire departments.