Firefighter Safety (FULLY INVOLVED)
Training Simulation
The number of preventable firefighter fatalities and injuries each year in America remains a grim reminder of the fire service’s failure to ensure worker safety.
The Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA), representing thousands of fire agencies and professionals in 10 states, has sponsored this grant to offer the fire service a unique approach to this problem. It is a collaborative project of public and private sector entities that will result in a widely distributed, standardized education and training program using proven learning technologies that change behavior and teach critical decision making skills. WFCA has selected Compelling Technologies to be its systems integration and development partner for this program.
With this Firefighter Safety training simulation program we will create a comprehensive fire safety education and training program using virtual reality simulation technology, formal instructional design methodologies, fire service best practices strategies and tactics, and real world case studies to improve the critical decision-making skills of company officers. Our vision is to enable instructors to more effectively teach cognitive judgment and thinking skills. The method is to provide a robust computer-based software program of serious fire scenarios that bring training materials alive in an interactive, challenging, engaging computer environment similar to 3D virtual reality “serious games.”
We will build and widely distribute a suite of virtual reality simulation scenarios based upon 1) actual case studies of firefighter deaths, injuries and near-misses; 2) in-depth field interviews with firefighters and company officers; 3) input and review from instructors, training officers, and subject matter experts; and 4) local, state, and national curricula standards.
In some cases of line-of-duty deaths over the past years, personnel were “lost” in the chaos; in other cases, entire crews were mistakenly identified as being “safe,” while their colleagues remained in danger.
Firefighter disorientation is one of firefighting's most serous hazards and usually precedes firefighter fatality.