But a mission like that is going to be executed best by taking volunteers. So yes, in theory, they were under command authority, but in practice what happened w

But a mission like that is going to be executed best by taking volunteers. So yes, in theory, they were under command authority, but in practice what happened was exquisite teamwork, with some members of the team accepting exceptional risk because of the stakes. The fire chief is an excellent leader to be able to quickly weigh the stakes and accept the risk, because the consequences of failure would have landed on him in a crushing way (professional ruin, personal guilt for the suffering of survivors, etc). Thankfully the stakes are very rarely so high, and courage of this calibre is rarely called upon.