Simulations help firefighters improve real-life rescue skills
Valley agencies train in virtual emergencies
Apache Junction’s 80 firefighters serve a 61-square-mile area that stretches well beyond the city limits. Still, they spend only a small percentage of their time fighting fires.
In the last two months of 2012, for instance, only 15 of the Apache Junction Fire District’s 1,232 calls were to put out fires. About 80 percent were to help with accidents and other health emergencies.
To get some extra practice, six of the district’s top supervisors last month fought computer-simulated fires at the Virtual Incident Command Center at Mesa Community College’s downtown Mesa campus.
The Apache Junction contingent was the latest among southeast Valley firefighters to take advantage of the MCC program.
Since the center opened about 16 months ago, workers from 39 Valley agencies, including Gilbert, Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Phoenix, have used it. Apache Junction firefighters and the Scottsdale Fire Department train there quarterly, said Larry Thacker, director of the Virtual Incident Command Center and a retired Phoenix fire captain.
Also, fire departments and people interested in emergency response from California, San Antonio, Texas, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian oil company, have visited to study the center’s simulation methods, Thacker said.
“There are few places like this in the country,” Apache Junction Fire Chief Paul Bourgeois said. “To have this right in our backyard, we are extremely fortunate. If you are going to make a mistake, I would rather do it here than at a real emergency scene.”
The 3,500-square-foot center was built in 2011 with $2.1 million in Maricopa County Community College District bond funds. It is entirely self-supporting — agencies like Apache Junction pay about $1,600 for a day of training there.
Last month’s training started with a call to an apartment-building fire, something firefighters rarely see in Apache Junction.
Division Chief Rob Bessee hopped into the captain’s seat of a replica fire engine and took command after he heard the report of a “structure fire” on a radio. On a laptop computer next to his seat, Bessee reviewed 911-call information as well as maps and photos of the apartment complex he was heading to.
A siren went on and a video of black
‘‘ If you are going to make a mistake, I would rather do it here than at a real emergency scene.”
Apache Junction fire chief smoke coming from the window of a burning apartment was all that could be seen from the front window of the truck.
“Let’s upgrade this to a second alarm,” Bessee ordered.
He then moved quickly to the “scene,” a darkened room in the command center where he would view video scenes of the interior of the apartment building and issue orders. He did this while wearing a breathing apparatus to make the simulation more real.
The Virtual Incident Command Center is the brainchild of Thacker, who developed Mesa Community College’s fireparamedic program two decades ago. In 2010, he decided he wanted to do something more, to create a center for professional rescue workers who needed additional training for disaster response.
He hired Valley firefighters with computer skills to create challenging but realistic emergency scenarios for the professionals who train at the center.
Jeff Case, a Phoenix Fire Department deputy chief who is the center’s training coordinator, compares the training done at the center to the work sports psychologists do with athletes.
“We have them mentally picture what they will be doing. Then, when they train, they create muscle memories of how to respond,” he said.
Case noted that unlike in other parts of the country that have older buildings, firefighters in the Phoenix area don’t battle large blazes very often. Many buildings were constructed to state-ofthe-art safety standards during the late-20th-century building boom.
So, the virtual training helps them respond more confidently when there is a large fire, he said.
To prepare to train the Apache Junction fire supervisors, retired Mesa firefighters Kenny King and Bobby Miller, who are now technicians at the center, shot video of street scenes near the apartment complex, photographed the apartment building and unit interiors and then used computers to simulate smoke and fire that would spread from a second-floor apartment to the attic.
Bourgeois, the Apache Junction fire chief, said that before the command center was developed, agencies such as his would “show a static image on a screen” while firefighters would discuss strategies and tactics.
During last month’s simulation, Division Chief Bessee and the other five fire officials came much closer to the real experience of fighting a fire. For instance, he struggled to issue clear orders through a breathing apparatus and while a chain saw was buzzing.
Before the scenario was over, two ladder trucks, six fire engines and two battalion chiefs had arrived at the virtual scene on Bessee’s orders. An evacuation took place, and an unconscious man was found in the smoke-filled bedroom of an apartment and taken to a hospital. Bessee remained calm through the exercise but described it afterward as challenging.
“Providing support for everyone can be a challenge,” Bessee said.