hose and nozzle as well as the water supply is consid ered as a
process with the purpose of transferring water from one place
to another. And through applying this process another totally
separate process is affected, a fire, which is princip ally a chemi
cal process in which energy is transformed from one state
to another. Control theory can then be used to analyse and
develop the functionality of response operations. It has also been
used in connection with military operations, by Worm 1998,
among others. The overall purpose of executing municipal emer-
gency response operations is to gain and maintain control (Svens-
son, 1999).
Conditions for control
Control is based on fulfilment of four general conditions
(Brehmer, 2000):
- Goal condition there must be a goal.
- Observation condition it must be possible to determine the
status of the system. - Change condition it must be possible to change the status in
this system. - Model condition there must be a model of the system.
Note that the criteria for gaining and maintaining control do
not necessarily require that the incident is resolved. It is suffi
cient that there is a strong possibility of this, that it is clear why
and how it should be resolved, that there are adequate resour
ces available and that the result of applying the resources is
understood etc. Conscious or calculated risks are included in
gaining control. There is perhaps, for example, the risk of a fire
spreading in a building, but even if this should happen, it is
still possible to have control as this could be a calculated risk.
The reasoning is based, though, on the assumption that the
assistance need is met.
Goal condition
The goal condition includes an overall (concrete) goal as well
as part goals and broken down goals for separate measures and
combinations of measures. The formulation of such goals depends
on, among other things, the decision domain considering the
problem. An overall goal related to the system domain system
command may be to handle certain types of incidents while