On-Site at FRI: Simulation Training Puts ICs in the Hot Seat
By Shannon Pieper

Unless you’re with a busy FDNY engine company, you probably don’t go to fires every day. In fact, you might not see a fire every week, or even every month. If you’re a volunteer in a rural area, you might not respond to more than one a year.

How, then, are you supposed to develop and maintain a familiarity with fireground procedures that are critical to effective incident management and ensuring all personnel go home safely?

“Fires are going down, but we are continuing to injure thousands of firefighters and kill approximately 100 each year, and at least some of those injuries and deaths are related to poor decision-making on the fireground,” says William Sturgeon, who recently retired as division chief with Orange County Fire Rescue in Winter Park, Fla.

His answer: simulation training to build command and decision-making effectiveness.

Sturgeon taught the seminar “Using Tactical Decision Games and Simulation to Improve Incident Command Decision Making” today at Fire-Rescue International with Ronald Tarr, program director and senior principal investigator at the University of Central Florida. “Simulation allows you to teach people in context,” he says. “You immerse them in the incident, which tests and develops their decision-making skills,” he says.

How Complex Will You Make It?
Fire training simulators range from software programs that allow you to upload your own photos and create simple simulations for after-action reviews to sophisticated—and admittedly, expensive—facilities that incorporate smoke, heat and other real-life fireground factors.

“One of the issues of simulation that is hotly debated is level of fidelity,” Tarr says. “Fidelity is defined as how closely a simulation represents reality. Physical fidelity includes factors such as motion, sounds, visuals, smells and other environmental effects. Functional fidelity refers to how close to reality things function—such as stopping distance of a driving sim or whether the radio consol works.”

With so many options, how do you know what your department needs? “Effects like flashover, smoke, etc., are possible,” Tarr says. “However, my feeling is when you reach that stage of training, you probably want to put the firefighter into some form of live-fire training. Often the real validity of the results comes more from how well the simulation is designed to achieve the desired learning and the sequence or story used to engage the student than how fancy the simulation features are.”

Bill Godfrey, chief consultant for the simulation training company FutureFD, who has worked with Sturgeon, agrees. “Good simulations are designed with specific teaching objectives in mind,” he says. “Incident command, communication, size-up, decision-making, communication, developing tactical plans, tactics, accountability, safety, resource management, confidence, competence—to name a few.” But he cautions, “It’s not a good idea to design one simulation to address everything, but rather target simulation design for specific training skill sets.”

Necessary Features
Although some options depend on the training objectives of the particular program, Tarr, Sturgeon and Godfrey touch on some features that they feel are essential. For Godfrey, it’s multiplayer simulation that puts students into context, such as a real-time scenario where participants talk on the radio, give and receive orders and communicate face-to-face.

“What’s important is the interaction, communication and decision-making between the students as a team—not the computer,” Godfrey says. “Some software enables multiplayer simulation without the contextual immersion of players interacting with each other like they would on a scene. That limits training value.”

Godfrey explains that the very first time he implemented a training program using multiplayer simulation, they planned to train the battalion chiefs as a group first and then work down to the company officers later. But due to some resistance in participating, they wound up doing the trial run with a BC and his company officers. “We were just beginning the critique when one of the company officers asked a really good question about what the battalion chief was expecting in the circumstance,” Godfrey says. “A 30-minute discussion ensued between the chief and his officers over tactics and expectations. From that point, we re-wrote the curriculum to train the battalion chiefs with their company officers.”

According to Sturgeon, the most important feature in simulation is the ability to test incident commanders under fire. “People make different kinds of decisions when they’re under stress than when they’re not,” he says. “A more dynamic simulation tests—and builds—confidence in decision-making and encourages you to be self-critical, to ask, What am I missing?”

As an officer, remaining calm on the fireground not only helps you make better decisions, it also helps others stay calm. “When you’re a command-level officer responding to an incident, en route you’re listening to the radio and you can usually pick up on cues, know whether things are going well before you get there,” Sturgeon says. “Simulation can show people what they sound like and look like under stress, so they can work on being calmer if needed. At the same time, we can also throw curveballs that increase the stress, such as the notification that two firefighters are running out of air.”

So what skills, exactly, should a simulation teach? There can be a range, from tactics to command, but in general tactics can be more difficult to teach via simulation. “Learning to operate a hose requires both mental skills and physical skills,” Tarr says. “Incident command requires more mental skills, communications skills, multitasking, etc.—which makes it a much better candidate for mediation via a simulator.”

Godfrey agrees: “I think teaching fireground tactics is probably the toughest. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to tactics like there is with incident command. There’s always—ALWAYS—more than one way to fight any particular structure fire.”

Implementation Challenges
Sturgeon notes that implementing the simulation program in Orange County wasn’t difficult because it was driven by the support of the chief. But even with that support, the department faced some challenges. “It was a change, and change in the fire service is always hard,” he says. “It requires a different way of thinking. We were teaching more than 200 officers a new mindset. Smaller departments would probably have an easier time.”

According to Godfrey, the most common problem is poorly designed visual elements (fire and smoke), regardless of the design tool being used. “When you study real structure fires, you see very quickly the fire and smoke showing from one window is not the same as the window next to it,” he says. “The smoke might be a little lighter or darker in color, moving slower or faster, have a different volume, etc. Yet when you look at many simulations, you see the exact same fire and smoke coming from two or more openings. It’s not realistic, and it’s an element that needs to be realistic because it matters to firefighters in their size-up.”

Godfrey says this problem stems from two causes: The designer knows structure fires but isn’t great with computers or the tool, or the reverse, where the designer is good with computers or the tool but isn’t an expert in fire behavior. “This is actually a pretty serious concern, as it’s possible to inadvertently teach someone the wrong thing by giving them a bad mental model of a structure fire or fire behavior,” he says.

Another challenge: getting the right classroom etiquette. “It’s very, very important to create a safe and positive learning environment where a student feels comfortable that if they say or do something wrong they won’t be humiliated or embarrassed,” Godfrey says. “Over the years, I’ve encountered some officers who were really challenging to teach because they were deathly afraid of making a mistake in front of their troops during training. Encouragement and support go a long way, but allowing a student a ‘do-over’ so they can apply what they’ve just learned and do it better the second time is invaluable. That’s the power of simulation—you can do it again and have the experience of a good performance instead of a browbeating.

Start with People, Not Machines
Tarr notes that many departments purchase simulators before mapping out what the simulation training program is designed to achieve. “It’s like a cell phone,” he says. “Most people don’t need, or know how to use, many of the features they have on their cell phone, but it sounds really cool, so they buy it. Similarly, most trainers are used to traditional, classroom instruction, which is mostly subject-matter-based and delivered via lecture, while simulation-based training is very different and requires a much more detailed understanding of the real-world performance and the students’ backgrounds, learning styles, etc.”

Godfrey’s advice: “Either start small and build step-by-step, or get someone who’s done it before to assist and guide your efforts. Jumping from no simulation training into multiplayer immersive simulation training can be a jolt to a department’s culture. You don’t want to dampen enthusiasm with a false start by trying to go too far too fast.”

Tarr points out another challenge that many people might not anticipate when converting training from classroom-led to simulation: “I find that what’s currently being used in the classroom is about 20 percent of what’s needed for a technology-based approach,” he says. “Instructors often work from a skeleton lecture plan that allows them great latitude to fill in with their experience. That often leads to interesting but not standard training”—and it can make it very difficult to convert the teaching material into a simulation-based curriculum.

To make the process go easier, Godfrey suggests handpicking instructors for their abilities with people as much as their technical competence. “You want instructors with a coaching attitude,” he says. “Don’t ever forget your simulation training rises or falls with your instructors.”

What About the Money?
But here’s the big question: Do departments have to have a lot of money to use simulation training?

“No, absolutely not,” Godfrey says. “There are a number of free and open-source simulation tools available as well as low-cost commercial options. Computers and laptops are cheaper now than ever before. You can put together a really effective simulation-based training program on a very modest budget.”

And can simulation actually save money? “The easy answer is yes, but the real answer is ‘it depends,’” Godfrey says. “If a department is using acquired structures or burn buildings to teach size-up, decision-making, communication, and incident command skills, then yes, simulation can save them money. But if there’s little or no training beyond classroom lecture on these subjects, simulation becomes a new training method.”

Even if it does incur new costs for the department, Godfrey emphasizes that the results of simulation can be priceless. “We don’t usually get into trouble on the fireground because someone doesn’t know how to operate a nozzle or move a hoseline,” he says. “Trouble comes to us in the form of improper size-up, bad decisions, poor communication, ineffective command and control, and sometimes just simple lack of understanding fire behavior. Simulation training can give instructors a powerful tool for improving these things—which can translate into saved property and lives. There’s no amount of money you can put on the life of a firefighter who died because of a mistake. No amount.”

Here to Stay
Although implementing a simulation program does come with its challenges, Sturgeon believes it’s only a matter of time before simulation is standard in the fire service. “As the cost comes down more, and as state training associations and large departments and even regionalized groups begin to invest in it, I think you’ll see it spread,” he says. “I’ve seen great success with simulation. I think it’s the future of the fire service. It’s no substitute for experience, but it does provide a safe, effective way for ICs to improve decision-making on the fireground.”

Shannon Pieper is deputy editor for FireRescue magazine.

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