Have We Ever Followed the Procedures on Fire Incidents on the Maritime Environment? An Analysis on Human Behavior under Stressful Conditions Available to Purchase

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyze the effects of common deviations from the designed firefighting procedures during actual emergency situations, with regards to human factors. According to official reports on major fire accidents on the maritime environment, in most cases the designed firefighting procedures are not followed at all. It is believed that the added stress created during these adverse conditions diverge the crew's response from the effective reactions. This is partly due to lack of encounters of such events that would prepare the crew for future accidents under stressful situations. State-of-the-art training requires firefighting simulators that create the desired stress -needed for the said accidents- under safe and controlled, however harsh and problematic, environment. Through the meta-analysis of investigation of fire accidents case by case, the paper signalize the importance of following the correct procedures. The paper is mainly focused on the human reactions and behaviors under stress. In this context the effect of all the Non – Technical Skills (ie Situation Awareness, Decision Making, Communication, Leadership, Teamwork, Stress and Fatigue) is analyzed to conclude for the soft skills that are more important in the fire incidents. Best practices in human behavior in such incidents are also discussed to promote the development of procedures in firefighting with regards to human limitations in the framework of Safety-II and pro-activeness.