Jordan Legan: Wayfinding in Smoke

A FRAMEWORK TO MAKE RAPID ASSESSMENTS OF HOUSES

INSTRUCTOR JORDAN C. LEGAN 

Jordan is a firefighter assigned to Seattle Fire Department Engine Co. 25, serving Capitol Hill. He is trained as an architect and has been a member of the Nozzle Forward cadre for over a decade.

This course will introduce firefighters to a principle-based framework to make rapid and accurate assessments of houses. It will discuss how a typology of historic and contemporary floor plans can serve as a firefighting tool.   Firefighters require a perceptual and cognitive framework that reduces the experience of chaos during a fire — one that helps them communicate clearly, share experience, and make decisions.   Wayfinding in Smoke builds on the general framework of the Nozzle Forward training methodology. It considers how the repetitive character of houses can be codified and used to improve firefighters’ understanding of the residential built environment – where firefighters operate most-often.