By Robert Tutterow

By now most of you have heard, and hopefully read, the recently released Wingspread VI report.

The report contains 14 “Statements of National Significance to the United States Fire and Emergency Services.” If you have not read it, please do. It is the output of a diverse group of approximately 40 people from the American fire service who looked at the industry’s challenges and opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a recorder for this event and hope to provide some perspective beyond the report.

About the Report

The Wingspread report gets its name from the Wingspread Conference Center located in Racine, Wisconsin. The center was developed around the former home of the Johnson Wax family designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The self-contained campus includes a small hotel-type facility to house participants. This report marked the 50-year anniversary of the first report. It has been published once every 10 years since it started in 1966. The conference started at the same conference center, hence its name, and was held there in 1966, 1976, and 1986. In 1996, the conference was in Dothan, Alabama, and in 2006, it was in Atlanta, Georgia.

The previous five conferences received very little publicity except for a short time after each report was released. For the most part, they were very general in nature and without any controversy. However, the 2016 report is a radical departure from the previous reports. It was put together by a larger group. It has the capacity to be distributed through multiple outlets, thanks to electronic and social media. But more importantly, it was decided that if the report was to have any impact, it must address key issues that are potentially controversial.

Another major departure of this report from previous reports is that it contains an action plan for each statement. Each plan identifies who is responsible for taking the action steps to address the challenges and opportunities. This could be a national group or several national groups. It could be a state or regional group. It could be each local fire and emergency service. Or, it could be each member of a fire and emergency service organization.

Tough Topics

Most of us are familiar with how difficult it is to reach consensus about “thorny” issues we face in this business. The U.S. fire and emergency services have always been very fragmented. There is no single governing or leading organization. They are services that rely on volunteers as well as people who choose the profession as a career. You can imagine the angst that ensued from some of the participants as the report was developed. For example, in this column I am using the term “fire and emergency services.” There was general, if not unanimous, consensus that the term “fire service” was no longer adequate to address the service level provided in most jurisdictions, nor was it a term that will adequately address the service into the future. After several possible terms and votes through a process of elimination, the group decided that “fire and emergency services” was the most appropriate term to use.

Another issue that remained contentious until the final draft of the document was whether to use the word “should” or “must” in the action plan. In the end, mainly because there is no enforcement authority, the group decided that “should” was the better word to use. But this was not a unanimous decision.

1 Read more 257 0 Article rating: No rating Posted: Apr 4, 2017 Smart Decision Making with Computer Fireground Simulators By Raul A. Angulo Not all tools firefighters use to fight fires are carried on the apparatus. Computer fireground simulators may be the most effective tool firefighters have at their disposal to train them in making smart fireground decisions. With fewer structure fires comes less live-fire experience to draw from. Firefighters can go years on the job without a significant fire. That means they must rely on theory and simulations. Prior to the 1990s, instructors taught size-up, strategy and tactics, and decision making by using hand-sketched diagrams and illustrations, doctored-up slides with colored markers to simulate smoke and flames, and illustrated transparencies with overhead projectors. Over the past 20 years, fire service computer programs and graphics technology have soared. Graphics don’t look like cheesy cartoon animations anymore; in fact, many come close to Hollywood-level special effects that look very real. They include smoke, fire, explosions, victims, sound effects, and more. All these categories involve movement that can be adjusted. For example, you can insert laminar (lazy) smoke or you can add turbulent smoke. The colors can be adjusted along the spectrum from white smoke to black smoke. Flames can be inserted to resemble a fire in the ignition (incipient) stage, the growth stage, or the fully developed stage. The explosions can be inserted with corresponding sound effects and victims can wave and call for help - incredible! 1 SimsUShare is an excellent tool for a tablet. Simply take a picture and drag in the desired fire elements to create a realistic fire simulation. (Photos 1-3 courtesy of Jonathan Kaye, SimUShare.) Fortunately, as the quality and realism of fireground graphics have increased, the price for the software has decreased. Previous generations of fire simulator software used to cost upward of $1,000 or more - only fire department training budgets and well-paid fire instructors could afford them. Today, computer simulation programs are within the budget of every firefighter. There are two well-established companies that offer superior fireground training simulator programs with state-of-the-art realistic graphics at a reasonable price: SimsUShare by CommandSim© and Fire Studio 6 by Digital Combustion™. Both are used primarily in strategy and tactics classes to practice size-up, identifying problems, establishing incident priorities, deploying resources, and practicing radio communication skills. They’re also used for incident safety officer training, promotional assessment exams, preincident planning, multiagency drills, multicompany drills, and informal personal practice. SimsUShare With the motto “Set your world on fire,” SimsUShare evolved from the original CommandSim fire simulation program developed by Jonathan Kaye, Ph.D., in 2004. Kaye finished his undergraduate work at Cornell University and earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an emergency medical technician for six years before his path intersected with fire service training. During an e-learning conference in which Kaye was talking about simulation-based training, a group of fire service instructors approached him with a need for such a program to train company and chief officers in strategy and tactics. He started working with those instructors on wh Read more 378 0 Article rating: No rating Posted: Apr 4, 2017 Smart Decision Making with Computer Fireground Simulators By Raul A. Angulo Not all tools firefighters use to fight fires are carried on the apparatus. Computer fireground simulators may be the most effective tool firefighters have at their disposal to train them in making smart fireground decisions. With fewer structure fires comes less live-fire experience to draw from. Firefighters can go years on the job without a significant fire. That means they must rely on theory and simulations. Prior to the 1990s, instructors taught size-up, strategy and tactics, and decision making by using hand-sketched diagrams and illustrations, doctored-up slides with colored markers to simulate smoke and flames, and illustrated transparencies with overhead projectors. Over the past 20 years, fire service computer programs and graphics technology have soared. Graphics don’t look like cheesy cartoon animations anymore; in fact, many come close to Hollywood-level special effects that look very real. They include smoke, fire, explosions, victims, sound effects, and more. All these categories involve movement that can be adjusted. For example, you can insert laminar (lazy) smoke or you can add turbulent smoke. The colors can be adjusted along the spectrum from white smoke to black smoke. Flames can be inserted to resemble a fire in the ignition (incipient) stage, the growth stage, or the fully developed stage. The explosions can be inserted with corresponding sound effects and victims can wave and call for help - incredible! 1 SimsUShare is an excellent tool for a tablet. Simply take a picture and drag in the desired fire elements to create a realistic fire simulation. (Photos 1-3 courtesy of Jonathan Kaye, SimUShare.) Fortunately, as the quality and realism of fireground graphics have increased, the price for the software has decreased. Previous generations of fire simulator software used to cost upward of $1,000 or more - only fire department training budgets and well-paid fire instructors could afford them. Today, computer simulation programs are within the budget of every firefighter. There are two well-established companies that offer superior fireground training simulator programs with state-of-the-art realistic graphics at a reasonable price: SimsUShare by CommandSim© and Fire Studio 6 by Digital Combustion™. Both are used primarily in strategy and tactics classes to practice size-up, identifying problems, establishing incident priorities, deploying resources, and practicing radio communication skills. They’re also used for incident safety officer training, promotional assessment exams, preincident planning, multiagency drills, multicompany drills, and informal personal practice. SimsUShare With the motto “Set your world on fire,” SimsUShare evolved from the original CommandSim fire simulation program developed by Jonathan Kaye, Ph.D., in 2004. Kaye finished his undergraduate work at Cornell University and earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an emergency medical technician for six years before his path intersected with fire service training. During an e-learning conference in which Kaye was talking about simulation-based training, a group of fire service instructors approached him with a need for such a program to train company and chief officers in strategy and tactics. He started working with those instructors on wh Read more 365 0 Article rating: No rating Posted: Apr 4, 2017 Smart Decision Making with Computer Fireground Simulators By Raul A. Angulo Not all tools firefighters use to fight fires are carried on the apparatus. Computer fireground simulators may be the most effective tool firefighters have at their disposal to train them in making smart fireground decisions. With fewer structure fires comes less live-fire experience to draw from. Firefighters can go years on the job without a significant fire. That means they must rely on theory and simulations. Prior to the 1990s, instructors taught size-up, strategy and tactics, and decision making by using hand-sketched diagrams and illustrations, doctored-up slides with colored markers to simulate smoke and flames, and illustrated transparencies with overhead projectors. Over the past 20 years, fire service computer programs and graphics technology have soared. Graphics don’t look like cheesy cartoon animations anymore; in fact, many come close to Hollywood-level special effects that look very real. They include smoke, fire, explosions, victims, sound effects, and more. All these categories involve movement that can be adjusted. For example, you can insert laminar (lazy) smoke or you can add turbulent smoke. The colors can be adjusted along the spectrum from white smoke to black smoke. Flames can be inserted to resemble a fire in the ignition (incipient) stage, the growth stage, or the fully developed stage. The explosions can be inserted with corresponding sound effects and victims can wave and call for help - incredible! 1 SimsUShare is an excellent tool for a tablet. Simply take a picture and drag in the desired fire elements to create a realistic fire simulation. (Photos 1-3 courtesy of Jonathan Kaye, SimUShare.) Fortunately, as the quality and realism of fireground graphics have increased, the price for the software has decreased. Previous generations of fire simulator software used to cost upward of $1,000 or more - only fire department training budgets and well-paid fire instructors could afford them. Today, computer simulation programs are within the budget of every firefighter. There are two well-established companies that offer superior fireground training simulator programs with state-of-the-art realistic graphics at a reasonable price: SimsUShare by CommandSim© and Fire Studio 6 by Digital Combustion™. Both are used primarily in strategy and tactics classes to practice size-up, identifying problems, establishing incident priorities, deploying resources, and practicing radio communication skills. They’re also used for incident safety officer training, promotional assessment exams, preincident planning, multiagency drills, multicompany drills, and informal personal practice. SimsUShare With the motto “Set your world on fire,” SimsUShare evolved from the original CommandSim fire simulation program developed by Jonathan Kaye, Ph.D., in 2004. Kaye finished his undergraduate work at Cornell University and earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an emergency medical technician for six years before his path intersected with fire service training. During an e-learning conference in which Kaye was talking about simulation-based training, a group of fire service instructors approached him with a need for such a program to train company and chief officers in strategy and tactics. 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