Scale and Emergency Management

 For those who have been tracking the current wildfires near Yosemite (known as the Rim Fire), I wanted to point out that there are interesting management challenges that go along with the drama of the wildfire.  As the report (linked below) points out, there are currently 5000 fire fighters working to put out the fire.  This operation will serve as a test of the scalability of management techniques.  It is worth considering whether management advice that works with dozens of employees will scale to problems like this that include thousands of employees (under a great deal of pressure, with limited communication abilities, in a remote environment).  This is some of what interests me so much in the management of disasters.



http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/30/us/california-yosemite-wildfire/index.html?hpt=hp_t2