5 ms·

Amazing read, goes to show that fighting fire is not just about pointing a hose to the fire. There's a lot of strategic decision that has to be made. When y

Amazing read, goes to show that fighting fire is not just about pointing a hose to the fire. There's a lot of strategic decision that has to be made. When you have multiple fire, which one do you point the hose at, where you position yourself, in what order do you fight them? You can't just look at the fire, but everything around it. Timing matters, I suppose SRE's can relate. But I believe developers can also learn from this by doing a lot of introspection.

liberte82 7y ago
You can’t just send helicopters and dump water on it?
- JshWright 7y ago
  Not on a fire like this, no. That amount of water all at once would just finish destroying the structure. It also wouldn't be terribly effective, since it can only hit fire that exposed to the sky (which isn't the fire that actually matters... if the fire is visible from above, it has already burned though whatever it is you're trying to save). Aerial operation would also require evacuating the area completely, which would end all other firefighting operations (so you'd actually be reducing the overall firefighting capacity on scene).
  - strgcmc 7y ago
    You may or may not be aware, the parent comment you're replying to, is a reference to a certain President's (idiotic, unhelpful, and uninformed) tweet at the time. Thanks for providing a real explanation though.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      As always it's important to /s sarcastic comments online because text does not convey sarcasm well without something like /s or the new cAmEl CaSe which does really well.
      - Rychard 7y ago
        > or the new cAmEl CaSe which does really well. aT tHe eXpEnSe oF rEaDaBiLiTy
        rtkwe 7y ago
        It's when the mocking and sarcasm is more important than the message. A lot of times it's used to just parrot back whatever the person you're mocking said anyways so readability doesn't have to be perfect.
        greyhair 7y ago
        rEaDaBiLiTy
      - ricree 7y ago
        Doubly so when meant to mock something that was already unironically said by someone else.
JshWright 7y ago
Relatedly... I have a foot in both worlds (part-time firefighter/paramedic, full-time dev/ops/SRE/etc). For the better part of a year now I've been kicking around the idea of a conference talk about the transferable lessons between the two.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Have you given a talk at a traditional dev/ops conference?
  - JshWright 7y ago
    No, that's why I've been mulling it over for so long ;)
    - segmondy 7y ago
      Stop mulling over it and just do it, it will be a great talk!
- jeffrallen 7y ago
  Look up Brent Chapman's work on applying the principles of incident management to IT operations.
  - dreamcompiler 7y ago
    So apparently it's not a new idea. Good, and thanks.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  Fantastic idea. When firefighters screw up, people die. So we have a large set of very practical guidelines and most of them exist because somebody died. I'd love to see outages (for example) managed with the Incident Command (IC) system. Maybe some companies do this already, IDK. But IC works very well in any "WTF is happening?" emergency situation.

liberte82 7y ago

You can’t just send helicopters and dump water on it?

JshWright 7y ago
Not on a fire like this, no. That amount of water all at once would just finish destroying the structure. It also wouldn't be terribly effective, since it can only hit fire that exposed to the sky (which isn't the fire that actually matters... if the fire is visible from above, it has already burned though whatever it is you're trying to save). Aerial operation would also require evacuating the area completely, which would end all other firefighting operations (so you'd actually be reducing the overall firefighting capacity on scene).
- strgcmc 7y ago
  You may or may not be aware, the parent comment you're replying to, is a reference to a certain President's (idiotic, unhelpful, and uninformed) tweet at the time. Thanks for providing a real explanation though.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    As always it's important to /s sarcastic comments online because text does not convey sarcasm well without something like /s or the new cAmEl CaSe which does really well.
    - Rychard 7y ago
      > or the new cAmEl CaSe which does really well. aT tHe eXpEnSe oF rEaDaBiLiTy
      - rtkwe 7y ago
        It's when the mocking and sarcasm is more important than the message. A lot of times it's used to just parrot back whatever the person you're mocking said anyways so readability doesn't have to be perfect.
        greyhair 7y ago
        rEaDaBiLiTy
    - ricree 7y ago
      Doubly so when meant to mock something that was already unironically said by someone else.

JshWright 7y ago

Relatedly... I have a foot in both worlds (part-time firefighter/paramedic, full-time dev/ops/SRE/etc). For the better part of a year now I've been kicking around the idea of a conference talk about the transferable lessons between the two.

lazyasciiart 7y ago
Have you given a talk at a traditional dev/ops conference?
- JshWright 7y ago
  No, that's why I've been mulling it over for so long ;)
  - segmondy 7y ago
    Stop mulling over it and just do it, it will be a great talk!
jeffrallen 7y ago
Look up Brent Chapman's work on applying the principles of incident management to IT operations.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago
  So apparently it's not a new idea. Good, and thanks.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
Fantastic idea. When firefighters screw up, people die. So we have a large set of very practical guidelines and most of them exist because somebody died. I'd love to see outages (for example) managed with the Incident Command (IC) system. Maybe some companies do this already, IDK. But IC works very well in any "WTF is happening?" emergency situation.