Situational awareness in indoor emergency response for first responders: A bibliometric approach

Abstract

Firefighters are consistently acting as first responders in the event of a fire tragedy in a building. The US National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has described lost inside as a significant cause of trauma to firefighters. The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has also stated that disorientation and inability to locate victims lead to firefighters' death. During the establishment of fire emergency response operations, the development and use of situational awareness are necessary to help first responders better assess the indoor changing circumstances and make informed decisions. First responders often lack situational awareness capability to quickly assessing a building's layout upon initial entry. One of the challenges is to provide the real-time quickest route to the first responders regarding the disaster area. This paper offers a review of situation awareness in the first responders' indoor emergency response between 2010-2020. The review is based on the bibliometric analysis of publications retrieved from the SCOPUS database. The review results aim to provide a knowledge base and overview of situational awareness for the decision-making process of first responders in indoor emergency response.