A lot of this stuff is outdated, even in the last seven years. Firefighting is an area where there's a lot of urban "knowledge" that is just straight ... wrong.

A lot of this stuff is outdated, even in the last seven years. Firefighting is an area where there's a lot of urban "knowledge" that is just straight ... wrong. You have agencies like NIST and NFPA doing studies and science, but they also get often a bad rap from firefighters for being "overly" safety conscious. Ironic, considering that they did solid foundational work that saved firefighter lives (now, though, more die due to PTSD and mental illness and accumulated cancers than do in the line of duty). I exaggerate not, I saw an ad for lateral firefighters to come work somewhere in the south: > Are you tired of being a firefighter in an OSHA state? Does your bunker gear smell of pallets and sadness? Do you really need someone to supervise you throwing a ladder? Come work for XYZ FD. In this case, it's the concept of "flow path" that is outdated. Firefighters believe(d) that by controlling the entrance of air/oxygen and where it exits the structure or such, that you can create "flow paths" that the fire will follow, bypassing rooms and going down hallways for example, until it all defenestrates through a window or your vent hole. It does no such thing - it's not lava flowing downhill with gravity. There's a lot of knowledge you gain on the job, often from the senior people. I tell new recruits that Fire Academy doesn't teach you how to be a fireman, it teaches you how not to kill yourself and your brothers on the fireground.