On the Impacts of Utilizing Smartphones on Organizing Rescue Teams and Evacuation Procedures

A serious fire game with two different scenarios for the search and rescue (SAR) operation was designed and played. In the first scenario, the SAR operation was performed without any smartphone app assistance, while in the second scenario, our recently developed smartphone app was employed to carry out the evacuation. In this paper, the effects of utilizing this app on organizing firefighting teams, performance of the firefighters, and the evacuation procedure are studied. The results collected from a post-game questionnaire, which was answered by the players of the firefighter role, are analyzed, turning out that the employment of the smartphone app is not only preferable and effective, but also user-friendly. It is also shown that a semi-centralized firefighting organizational model suits the second scenario, whereas a decentralized one is typically used in other scenarios, such as the first one.