An Algorithm for the Dynamic Relocation of Fire Companies

When all the fire companies in a region are engaged in fighting fires, protection against a future fire is considerably reduced. It is standard practice in many urban fire departments to protect the exposed region by relocating outside fire companies temporarily to some of the vacant houses. In New York City, situations requiring such relocations arise ten times a day on the average. The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) currently makes its relocations according to a system of preplanned moves. This system was designed at a time when alarm rates were low and is based on the assumption that only one fire is in progress at a time. Because of the high alarm rates currently being experienced in parts of New York City, this assumption is no longer valid, and the preplanned relocation system breaks down at the times when it is needed most. This paper describes a computer-based method for determining relocations that overcomes the deficiencies of the existing method by utilizing the computer’s ability to (1) store up-to-date information about the status of all fires in progress and the location and activity of all fire companies, (2) generate and compare many alternative relocation plans quickly. The method, which will become part of the FDNY’s real-time Management Information and Control System (MICS), is designed to be fast and to require little computer memory. After giving some background of the problem and the objectives of relocation, we give the problem a mathematical programming formulation and then describe the heuristic algorithm to be used for generating relocations in the MICS. The remainder of the paper is devoted to a discussion of an example illustrating how the algorithm works, a rigorous test of the algorithm using a computer simulation model of Fire-Department operations, and a description of the current use of the computer algorithm by dispatchers in an interactive time-shared environment. The results of the testing indicate that the proposed algorithm is a significant improvement over existing methods, particularly in crisis situations. Although designed to solve a problem for the New York City Fire Department, the algorithm should be applicable to other cities.