/fī(-ə)r-ˌfī-tiŋ/
n. 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking.
"Been hacking your new newsreader?"
"No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires."
2. The act of throwing lots of manpower and late nights at a project, esp. to get it out before deadline.
See also gang bang, Mongolian Hordes Technique; however, the term 'firefighting' connotes that the effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.