Defensive strategy is defined as which of the following?

• A. Overall plan for incident control established by the incident commander that involves aggressive, direct intervention.
• B. A plan to evacuate civilians only.
• C. Overall plan for incident control established by the incident commander that involves protection of exposures.
• D. A method for recording incident statistics.

Answer: (C)

Defensive strategy is about controlling the incident from the outside and focusing on protecting exposures. It means the incident commander chooses an approach that keeps firefighters out of the most dangerous interior actions and aims to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby buildings or properties. This approach is used when interior entry would be too risky or when the structure is heavily involved, and the priority becomes stopping the flames from reaching exposures and stabilizing the scene.

Protections of exposures refer to safeguarding adjacent buildings, vehicles, or other assets that could ignite due to radiant heat or fire spread. The broader idea is to contain the fire and limit damage rather than conduct an interior offensive attack.

The other options don’t fit because: one describes aggressive, direct intervention typical of offensive strategies, not defensively; another focuses on evacuating civilians only, which is not the defining element of defensive strategy; and the last describes recording incident statistics, which isn’t related to incident control strategy.