NEW TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED USING VIRTUAL REALITY TO TRAIN, DEVELOP AND ASSESS YOUR FIREFIGHTERS? The Fire Service College, Moreton-inMarsh, Gloucestershire, in the UK are working with the team from FLAIM Systems in Melbourne, Australia to integrate the use of FLAIM Virtual Reality Firefighter into the day to day delivery of operational firefighter training & development and seeking support to accept and introduce this type of technology into the assessment methodology for firefighter standards.
WHY SHOULD THE FIRE SERVICE USE VIRTUAL REALITY FOR TRAINING?
For a long time now, there has been the promise that new technologies would transform the fire services. Whilst there have been significant advances in a number of areas there has been little to change the way training is conducted. A few years ago, the technology was not capable of providing a realistic alternative or contribution to hot fire training. However, recent developments have now changed the options available
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to fire services and industry. It must be stated that the use of VR is not intended to replace hot fire training, but to add to the range of options to be used to train, develop, and assess firefighters.
Research undertaken in the UK shows that training firefighters in a VR environment produces similar outcomes to live training in the traditional manner. Humans learn by repetition and with VR it is possible to repeat training evolutions as often as required.
BENEFITS
There are many benefits for services using VR training that go far beyond improved training outcomes.
COST REDUCTION
One of the main advantages of FLAIM is that the use of this equipment takes the training to the firefighter, not the other way around, as is the case in many services today. The time saved
can be used for training instead of travel. The system can be moved to multiple locations at virtually no cost. It can be used by multiple users in the same location such as a fire station with multiple shifts. Training can take place at any time, night or day and is not adversely affected by weather. Volunteers or on call firefighters would be able to attend at a time convenient to them to undertake training. It enables a degree of flexibility, which is currently not available with the existing training options. FLAIM allows for continued repetition of performance in a safe classroom environment, where training can be stopped and learning opportunities can be discussed across the delegates with the risk removed. This approach also reduces the requirement to build real practical scenarios, and the provision of extensive assets allocated to achieve the same learning outcomes, obviously this
