As traffic calming measures are designed to slow down traffic in a neighborhood, they also invariably affect the Ithaca Fire Department in the same manner. Traffic calming initiatives slow down the response of an emergency vehicle to, or through, a neighborhood. Whether or not this is significant in the overall scheme of things is the question. Fire and emergency medical services professionals frequently talk about response time as a life or death issue.
Fire fighters attempt to intervene before flashover occurs.
At the point of flashover, the room is no longer tenable to life and anyone still in the compartment where the flashover occurred is now dead. The ability of the fire department to save the building, and at the same time do so with a reasonable degree of safety for fire fighters, is instantly and irrevocably compromised. The seconds and minutes prior to flashover are critical to the outcome. Similarly, a life threatening medical emergency, whether a severe trauma as in a motor vehicle crash, or a heart attack or similar event, often provides the victim and the rescuers attempting to get to the victim only five or six minutes to intervene before irreversible brain damage occurs. Obviously, the seconds and minutes prior to brain death are critical to the outcome.