Playing the advance game offers you asymmetric characters, above and beyond just picking your player count. However, this is the nuance of playing the game different ways – don’t optimise to the best method here because you simply don’t need to in order to win this game.

However, let’s assume your interested in where to start within the game play, and what type of behaviour might get you to that perfect score of saving all the people!

During The Game:

Lots of small fires; It’s a simple message, but the fire spreads quickest when an explosion happens. Explosions are the way this game drives the fire out from the centre, and combined with “flash over” (smoke+fire = fire) means that the fire can expand rapidly. This means you need to keep the existing fires under control and keep them small. The less likely they are to be hit by the die roll the better. Specifically though, a small fire is easier to address than a big fire which you have to fight your way through as they are continuing to expand.

Chop through; Sometimes you will come to a fork in the road – chop the wall and go through quickly or go find that door. Time is of the essence here and there’s a temptation to always chop. The chop is a useful tool but use it for structurally important routes. If this saves a long route through the middle of the board – go for it. If this is a quick fix to one person, take the chance of going round – it’s not worth the damage!

Regular POI / Firefight; When you leave the building you stop putting out fires; so whilst saving people is great if you don’t stop to put out the fire it will be raging out of control before you get to that victory. If you only fight the fire, then it’s going to be a long game. Take regular spells to challenge yourself about the balance between these two and whether you can take more risk / put our more fires.

Fire Truckin’; In the advanced games you can use the fire truck – that’s a hose that can cause a water explosion effect. You can take out a lot of fire through this, but don’t rush to do it. There’s a good chance you miss and a good chance you only capture part. Let it get really bad first if you are going down this strategy, but don’t forget you can’t have anyone in that quadrant when the truck starts!

Good luck fighting the blaze!