WASHINGTON — The global financial turmoil may revive the International Monetary Fund's role as the world's financial firefighter, providing loans to cash-strapped countries and developing an early warning system to prevent future crises.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the ambitious French leader of the 185-nation organization, is enthusiastically embracing a mandate to use the IMF's resources and skills in shaping the global economy. He says he is ready to begin an immediate overhaul of the fund.

Meanwhile, as major powers ponied up $3 trillion last week to start bringing order to financial markets, Iceland, Hungary and Ukraine indicated they might seek financing from the IMF to improve their dangerous fiscal maladies.

In recent years, the IMF has been relegated to the sidelines with its loan portfolio and role on the international stage diminished. Many countries that had been borrowers sought funds in capital markets and built huge reserves so they would not have to come hat in hand to the IMF.

In addition, China and other wealthy countries have provided loans to developing countries, many in Africa, with no strings attached.

Founded in the aftermath of World War II, the IMF became the international community's fire brigade in the 1990s, providing loans to countries in financial trouble from Thailand to Turkey, while requiring dire belt-tightening measures.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who turned to the fund for aid in the early 1990s, once sarcastically said its initials stand for the International Misery Fund.

The IMF and its relative, the World Bank, located across the street from each other in Washington three blocks from the White House, are known as the Bretton Woods institutions, for the town in New Hampshire where they were established almost 65 years ago. European leaders said Wednesday a "Bretton Woods II" is needed to redesign the world's financial architecture.

In a sign that the IMF is becoming relevant again, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said Wednesday he was in permanent contact with the fund, and that the fact that help was there if Hungary needed it was creating a more stable financial situation.

Strauss-Kahn said the IMF is ready to respond rapidly to discussions with Hungary.

He said last week that IMF loans that totaled $110 billion in 2003 had dwindled to $17 billion as of Sept. 30. The interest these loans produced has dried up, causing a $400 million deficit that Strauss-Kahn faced when he took over last November. He slashed 400 jobs and made other changes to shore up the IMF's finances and now says he has "hundreds of billions of dollars" to lend.