Name the confounder: fire trucks dispatched and fire damage

Question

A city analyst notices that across recorded fires, the more fire trucks dispatched to a scene, the more property damage results. A council member proposes sending fewer trucks to reduce damage.

What third variable most plausibly drives both the number of trucks and the amount of damage? Name it and explain why the proposal is backwards.

Accepted Answer

The confounder is the size (severity) of the fire. A big, fast-spreading fire triggers a large dispatch (more trucks called in) and causes heavy damage. A small kitchen fire gets one truck and does little damage. The severity of the blaze is a common cause driving both the truck count and the damage; the trucks are a response to the fire, not a cause of the destruction. Why the proposal is backwards. Sending fewer trucks would not shrink the fires; it would leave big fires under-resourced, letting them burn longer and cause more damage. The observed correlation runs through fire size, so cutt…

Name the confounder: fire trucks dispatched and fire damage

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