Making rapid decisions under stress is critical to members of the fire service. The problem was that Loveland Fire Rescue officers displayed an inconsistent approach when making rapid tactical decisions under stress, thereby compromising the safety of firefighters and civilians. The purpose of this research was to determine what factors contributed to stressful decision making and what methods were available to improve the decision making process.This descriptive research project answered five questions: (1) what environmental factors were present when individuals made decisions under stress; (2) what was the impact of individual education, training and experience; (3) what human factors inhibited or contributed to successful decision making under stress; (4) what decision models are taught and used by LFR and the fire service; and (5) what methods were employed by other professionals to teach rapid decision making under stress? A descriptive research method was used and a survey was employed to gather data. The survey questions were (1) how did you teach your personnel to make rapid decisions and (2) what decision models did you use? The procedures used were a literature review and a two-question survey distributed to members of 13 fire and EMS agencies in 18 states.The results determined that recognition primed decision making was based on intuition gained through experience. Furthermore, human and environmental factors have impacted rapid decision making as well. The survey results reinforced the observation of inconsistent decision making with LFR officers. Recommendations included the implementation of the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (OODA) Loop, teaching the differences between naturalistic and traditional decision making, implementing the use of simulations, and closing the instructional gap between the structural and wildland firefighting communities.