TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2020//
TI  - Fight or flight? Behaviour and experiences of laypersons in the face of an incipient fire
JO  - Ergonomics
A1  - Thielsch, Meinald T.
A1  - Kirsch, Julia
A1  - Thölking, Hannah
A1  - Tangelder, Lena
A1  - Lamers, Christoph
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - Within minutes, an incipient fire can develop into a life-threatening full fire. Consequently, it should be fought as early as possible. But are laypersons capable of doing this? In such a situation, how do they behave and feel? These questions are addressed in the current study. Persons without any professional firefighting training (N = 64) were confronted in two experimental runs with a real incipient fire in the form of a burning pillow. The results show that most participants were motivated and able to extinguish the fire successfully. However, most of them made a number of mistakes. Of central importance for extinguishing the fire was self-efficacy. Furthermore, participants improved enormously in the second round, especially regarding reaction time span and various psychological variables (e.g., stress, mood). Particularly on the basis of these exercise effects, we can derive a number of practical implications.    Practitioner summary: Laypersons are willing and able to successfully fight an incipient fire. Yet, their behaviour is not optimal and could lead to self-endangerment. Thus, it is critically important that people perform practical exercises as part of fire safety trainings and repeat them after some time.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0014-0139
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2020.1825824
ID  - ref1
ER  -