Scheduling fire-fighting tasks using the concept of deteriorating jobs

In fire fighting, the time and effort required to control a fire increase if the beginning of the fire containment effort is delayed. Several demand-covering models have been proposed for the deployment of available fire-fighting resources so that a forest fire is attacked within a specified time limit. This paper considers the problem of scheduling a single fire-fighting resource when there are several existing fires to be controlled using a model specific to the fire's rate of spread. The problem is tackled using the concept of deteriorating jobs, that is, the model represents increasing value loss as fires remain unsuppressed and increasing time for fire suppression.