General
size-up
What does size-up mean?
The first 360-degree read of an incident: what's burning, how big, who's inside, what's exposed, what resources do I need. Done out loud over the radio by the first-arriving officer and updated continuously.
"Engine 4 on scene, two-story residential, heavy smoke from the Bravo side — give me a working fire and start the size-up."
Origin
Fire-service incident-command vocabulary, codified in textbooks since the early 20th century; Lloyd Layman's 13-point size-up from the 1940s is the classic framework.
Frequently asked questions
What does size-up mean?
It's the fast on-scene assessment of exactly what you're dealing with, used especially by emergency responders.
How do you use size-up in a sentence?
"First engine on scene did a quick size-up before making entry."
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