Quantitative Analysis on Time Delay Factors Influencing Firefighters' Response Time in the Process Industries Using Fuzzy Sets Theory

Response time management is one of the most critical issues for firefighting organizations in the process industries. Thus, in emergency response success, it is of particular importance to apply an appropriate method to identify, prioritize, and manage factors influencing response time. The current study aimed to determine factors affecting firefighters' response time in Iranian process industries. Therefore, firstly a Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) was performed for firefighting emergency response-related activities. Then, time influencing factors for each task were determined. Finally, we chose the importance of each influencing factor and its priority based on the Fuzzy Chang approach. The results showed that factors, including the proper location of the firefighting truck, wearing and adjusting the breathing apparatus (BA) strap, and crowded at the scene had a significant impact on the response time to fire alarms. The related weights were equal to 0.049, 0.0485, and 0.0481, respectively. On the contrary, the wrong size of protective ensembles, BA weight, and height of car chassis factors were not significant in the response time. Their weight was equal to 0.0003, 0.002, and 0.0073, respectively. The results showed that the Fuzzy Hierarchical Task Analysis Approach (FHTA) could be used to identify and prioritize the factors influencing firefighting response time.