Angel ~ To answer your question about how a Firefighter might react
to this situation:

I'm a former Chief, now an Assistant Chief, with a 30 person, all Volunteer,
semi-rural Fire Department. We answer to a Township Board of Trustees,
but have the luxury of never beig second guessed or told HOW
to run a call by those folks. This gives us a LOT of leeway to size up
an incident and decide to to what WE, the Firefighters on the call,
think is the right and proper thing to do. In contrast, larger city
Volunteer Departments, and most Career or Paid Departments, have
to follow usually very formal, written policies and "Standard
Operating Procedures" that sometimes just don't cover everything
we run into in the "real world" of emergency service. So what do you
do when something happens that requires a action that isn't covered
by your Departmental SOP's? It all depends on what kind of an organization
that you belong to; and how the "administration" might react
to your doing something that isn't covered by a formal policy or SOP.

Given a "routine" kid or critter locked in a car situation ~ we first
determine if the car is running and if the air or heater is operating
and will maintain a confortable temperature. If there's no risk to
the occupant, we'll stand by for a couple of hours if need be to
monitor the situation and wait for another key to arrive or a locksmith.
If it's too hot, cold, or there's the possibility of a carbon
monoxide problem, we'll break a small window and do the rescue.

A "nasty attitude" dog, like Springfield had, is a different situation.
You NEED an experienced dog handler and a place to put the critters.
With no handler and no container, one of the "officials" had to make a
tough decision. I think I would have asked the arrestee if his AC worked?
If yes; allow him to enter the car, start her up and turn on the air =
problem solved for a while. If no AC, well; Houston, we got a problem!
Turn to the civilians and ask if anybody will help. Determine from the
arrestee if the dogs will be cooperative with a stranger and allow him
to assist with the turn-over. Remember the guy is a long term escapee
and wanted felon - the cops aren't going to let him drive the dogs home!

As a last resort, call the Fire Guys and ask them to stand by and
hose the dogs down enough to keep them cool
until a back-up plan is
created by a supervisor. Having all the concerned "officials"
stand around and watch the dogs pass out with
heat stroke was NOT a
very sound plan. Shame on the whole bunch! /s/ Phred, a Fire Guy