Training to Answer the 911 Call - Part 1

Fire service training enterprises are adding ever-more capable learning technologies in their programs of instruction. Group Editor Marty Kauchak reviews the quick-paced developments in this simulation and training sector.

First responders are included in the Safety Critical Training editorial program with good reasons. To point, one group of first responders – firefighters – literally and routinely immerse themselves in life and death events during their shifts.

Data available on the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) website note local fire departments responded to 1,291,500 fires in 2019, and added, “These fires caused roughly 3,700 civilian deaths, 16,600 civilian injuries and $14.8 billion in property damage.” Further, every 24 seconds, a fire department in the US responds to a fire somewhere in the nation. A fire occurs in a structure at the rate of one every 65 seconds, and a home fire occurs every 93 seconds.

Firefighters beyond the US and in other government and commercial communities – military, aviation and others – around the globe, are bringing to bear cutting-edge technologies to enhance learning tasks in individual firefighters’ and teams’ continua of training. Of added interest to followers of Halldale Group’s civil aviation and defence editorial programs, are the emerging commonalities, from individual technologies to capabilities (after action reviews and others), among training enterprises in those two sectors and their fire service counterparts.

This is the first article of a two-part series and provides a survey of two training products in this market space. The second article highlights a third representative training technology and contains a glimpse of intersecting capabilities among these training systems.

Responding to the Emergency – Safer

FAAC’s fire truck driver training simulator supports simple-to-complex, individual and team training. The levels of this platform’s-based training are increasingly diverse and challenging, and broadly range from basic driving skills, through emergency response scenarios and then up to a higher level of emergency response scenarios occurring with critical incidents and taking place “on the fly,”, according to Chuck Deakins, a subject matter specialist and Training Group Lead at FAAC.

The simulation and training company uses scenario-based training to support learning audiences using this simulator. The community expert further explained that FAAC creates its scenarios asking two, high-level questions – first, what are all the skills it takes for an engineer (driver), firefighter or volunteer to get into the vehicle, and get it safely responding to an emergency from Point A to the situation?

He noted, “The diverse skills may include scan and assess, presence and awareness, and attitude while driving and operating a vehicle.” FAAC further asks, “what are you trying to multi-manage during your responses?” These follow-on, separate tasks may include operating lights and sirens, and following policies and procedures, use of the radio and incident communications. Deakins continued, “And suddenly – the simple task of driving an apparatus from Points A to B becomes super complicated – much more than most people recognize and understand. We try to impact the low frequency, but high liability scenario, as well as the higher frequency, but lower (liability) impact scenario and situation.”

In an additional strategy that resonates well with crew and team training occurring in the military, civil aviation, medical and other sectors, FAAC uses a firefighter’s continuum of training to move beyond basic driving skills for the engineer, and includes the truck’s officer in the right-hand cab seat.

Deakins explained this team training dynamic continues to when the truck arrives on scene, the engineer “sets up” the truck as in real life and exits to train on the Pump-Ops pump panel simulator. He added, “The officer in the right seat also exits the vehicle and moves to the ‘In Command’ Incident Command and Control training simulator. Now they are both working the scene. This whole event is taking place with both interacting within the same event. This is high-level simulation training that is very difficult to create on the ground. This meets another goal of providing a controlled response to an emergency situation.”

This fire truck simulator offers another capability of increasing importance in the high-risk community training enterprise – the after-action review (AAR). For this program, the AAR begins at the original radio call for a first response, and continues with a focus on the engineer’s driving performance (speed, selected route, on-scene vehicle placement and other criteria). The FAAC training leader pointed out the AAR, along with a virtual instructor called VITALS, allows the student to see themselves as others see them, and emphasized, “That is really where the learning occurs – at that point.”

AAR is an important capability of the other two products as we’ll read later.

FAAC’s fire truck simulator has been delivered to the Fire Department of New York and departments in other large US cities, and state fire academies. The platform is further configured as a mobile, deployable system, providing on-demand training to smaller, widely dispersed fire departments in a region.

Deakins added, “We also have this simulator in Qatar, in South America and many other nations around the world. And the US Air Force also has our fire truck simulator and other Continuum-of-Training products.”

The OEM is looking to continue enhancing this training platform with advanced VR headsets, hand-held radios, and other hardware and software. Deakins concluded, “We want to maximize technology, through the application of training.”

The Spreading FLAIM

Elsewhere in the virtual training domain, James Mullins, PhD, CTO and Founder of FLAIM, noted FLAIM Systems are “first in the market to develop a virtual immersive learning technology that enables firefighters and initial responders to train safely and frequently, at low cost, in high-risk hazardous situations that cannot be economically and safely replicated in the real world!”

Dr. Mullins, whose doctorate is in robotics and haptics, and is a third-generation volunteer firefighter, initially recalled that in his role as a lead researcher at Deakin University (Victoria, Australia), within the Institute for Intelligent Systems, Research and Innovation (IISRI), he worked with a team of researchers to conceptualize and develop FLAIM Trainer. He then noted that as a third-generation volunteer firefighter, “I had noted the problem with firefighters not getting enough access to live fire training and the skills gap this was creating in firefighter preparedness. I had also noted the challenges the fire service was experiencing attracting the next generation of firefighters to the industry.”

Flaim Trainer. Image credit: FLAIM

The team’s solution approach was to combine industry standard equipment with virtual fire scenarios and heat generation, to create a fully immersive, multi-sensory, physical experience.

“A key part of the proprietary technology we developed is our live force-feedback hose reel and nozzle, which ensures the firefighter experiences the ‘real life’ weight of the hose and the intense nozzle-jet reaction when fighting the fire. In addition, we incorporated a fire proximity heat vest which increases in intensity as the firefighter gets closer to the virtual fire and a SCBA [self-contained breathing apparatus] sensor technology which captures respiration and fatigue data.”

When this is combined with FLAIM’s proprietary ‘virtual fire physics’ the team was enabled to create the “live fire feeling” and experience in the safety of the classroom with no risk of live fire training accidents and no unnecessary carcinogen exposure to the firefighter and the instructor.

The learning experience with FLAIM is best delivered when one student is in the scenario with a dedicated instructor and a classroom viewing the learning experience. The academic and fire service subject matter expert further explained firefighter students can rotate in and out at four per hour in 15-minute sessions, meaning a single instructor can train up to 24 firefighter students per day. He continued, “The advantage of immersive learning is that the whole cohort of students can learn from the eyes of the virtual firefighter, therefore continuing their education by observing other firefighter decision making. This is not possible in live fire training!”

Of additional importance, FLAIM has built a content creator learning approach where the instructor and/or the fire authority training organization can create their own Dynamic Risk Assessment (DRA) of their chosen scenarios to enable them to create an AAR that enables the fire agency to record, provide feedback and create learning improvement programs.

The FLAIM trainer system can be set up in 15 minutes and requires a minimum internal free roam floor area of 12’ x 12’ to operate effectively.

FLAIM’s rapid take-up in the local and international fire training community is one datum point on the community’s interest and demand for virtual training. The company commenced sales in 2019 and now has clients in over 25 countries, ranging from career and volunteer fire & emergency services, defense, aviation, extraction, energy, transportation and training Organizations.

The FLAIM executive noted his company is “also seeing a great response to our latest product, FLAIM Extinguisher, which is an immersive virtual training tool that enables initial responders, and the general public, to learn OH&S [occupational, health & safety] correct procedures and develop safe and effective extinguisher management techniques.”