Episode 203: Harnessing Virtual Reality for a New Era in Firefighter Training with Rick Huffman

Published 2024-03-14

Episode notes

What provides realistic experiences and allows for practicing in high-risk scenarios?

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

Thanks for joining us for our 4 part TSI Mini Series! The Technology Summit International (TSI) , held in Texas from December 5-7, 2023, focused on the practical implementation of technology in fire services. Its aim was to bring together the brightest minds in the fire service to explore technologies that made a real difference in firefighter safety and decision making.

It wasn't just about new tools; it was about effectively integrating them into the everyday realities of firefighting. The summit delved into the root cause of fire service challenges while exploring new ideas and pushing the boundaries of what was possible in firefighting.

In this episode:

How can creating and using data effectively be easy, timely, and valuable for firefighters?

In what ways does implementing new data and technology solutions improve efficiency, decision-making, and safety in the fire service?

What potential does virtual reality and immersive learning have in fire service training?

Hear from Rick Huffman - the Division Chief of Clackamas Fire District .

Rick talks about the importance of data and technology in the fire service, highlighting the evolution of data collection. He also emphasizes the challenges of creating and using data effectively, including the need for simplicity and value proposition.

Rick shares success stories of implementing new data and technology solutions in the fire service, and also explores the role of VR and immersive learning in fire service training - particularly for high-risk scenarios.

So click play now to find out what he has to share! And thanks a ton for tuning in to our TSI Mini Series!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

0:00 Intro
0:53 Live at Technology Summit International with Rick Huffman
1:46 From fire cadet in 1978 to division chief
1:54 How fire service data has evolved
2:54 Why creating and using data is so hard
3:52 Making technology help firefighters, not burden them
5:31 Success stories with new data and technology
7:44 Virtual reality for high-risk, low-frequency training
13:43 Building patients and scenarios in VR
16:59 360 cameras and walkthroughs
19:42 How to get started with VR
20:58 What Rick is excited about at TSI
21:56 Think in a new way
22:55 Outro

Questions answered in this episode

How has data collection in the fire service changed since the 1970s?

Rick Huffman says the original data system was the original iPad with pencil and paper, six copies with carbon. It was hard to do then, but departments depend on data more now and want more, so it's harder to do now.

Hear it at 1:57

What makes firefighters willing to enter and use data?

Rick Huffman says data has to be easy, timely, and valuable. If firefighters see a return on their efforts in a way that affects them positively, departments will get better data entry. Less clicks are better, even if the data is not necessarily right.

Hear it at 3:06

How can virtual reality be integrated into fire service training?

Rick Huffman recommends a blended solution. You cannot sell technology to replace real world experience or hands on training. VR works best for high risk, low frequency events like multi casualty incidents or plane crashes. Put the person in the scenario in VR and their brain thinks they are there, but only use it in small doses alongside face to face communication and hands on skills.

Hear it at 10:50

What is a practical way for a fire department to start using VR?

Rick Huffman says to buy a headset and a 360 camera. Off the shelf programs for emergency responders are available in app stores or can be sideloaded. Find someone in your department with a niche for this, provide editing tools that are free or inexpensive, and let them go.

Hear it at 19:42

How can 360 degree media be used for pre incident planning?

Rick Huffman suggests taking a 360 video walkthrough of a target hazard that is hard to access and putting it in every headset in your stations. Anyone anywhere could walk through that high risk building. Most stations only get to go locally, and maybe some stations never go in that area, but they would on a multi alarm call.

Hear it at 15:49

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 203 transcript

Harnessing Virtual Reality for a New Era in Firefighter Training with Rick Huffman

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Rick Huffman

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting Podcast, where we cover firefighting technology trends and change management. Today, we are joined by Rick Huffman, the division chief of Clackamas Fire District, who discusses the importance of data and technology in the fire service. Rick highlights the evolution of data collection from paper-based systems to modern technology like virtual reality. Rick emphasizes the challenges of creating and using data effectively, including the need for simplicity and value proposition. Rick shares some success stories of implementing new data and technology solutions in the fire service through case studies such as using virtual reality for high-risk, low-frequency training scenarios. Rick's message is clear. We must embrace new technologies to empower the future of the fire service. Enjoy the show. We're sitting here at the Technology Summit International alongside Division Chief of Clackamas Fire District, Rick Huffman. Rick, how you doing?

[1:00] Rick Huffman: Good. It's really good to be here.

[1:02] Kevin Sofen: So what brings you here and why are you here in Irving, Texas?

[1:06] Rick Huffman: Well, I guess I'm slightly a nerd, you know, so the technology brought me, but it's also the networking and looking at what everybody's doing. And especially today, we're talking about data. Everything we do is data-driven. And so how do we do that? You know, I thought we'd just kind of look around and see how other people are doing it. And that usually is the best way of learning it.

[1:30] Kevin Sofen: Couldn't agree more. I mean, that's part why we started this podcast to be able to cast a spotlight on what some of the things people were doing around the country. And I think data is a good place to start. I mean, from your perspective, being a division chief and having served in the fire service for how long have you been in the fire service?

[1:46] Rick Huffman: I started as a fire cadet with Ventura County in 1978.

[1:50] Kevin Sofen: Okay.

[1:51] Rick Huffman: Yeah, so it's been a few years, which has actually been a great experience.

[1:54] Kevin Sofen: And how has data evolved from 1978, in your experience, to where we're at tonight?

[1:57] Rick Huffman: Oh, the original iPad with a pencil and paper, you know, it's six copies with carbon. You know, that was our original data. That's funny you bring that up, because it was hard to do then, but we depend on it more and want more, so it's harder to do now.

[2:14] Kevin Sofen: And I mean, you mentioned the original iPad. I mean, I am actively taking notes with a pen and paper here, but in your words, like, What does data in the fire service in 2023 mean? I know that's a super highly loaded question. You could go a thousand angles, but what's data in the fire service mean to you in 2023?

[2:35] Rick Huffman: That is a kind of a loaded question, but I think in general, I would say data is what we've done, what we need to do, and how we do it. That's just how we try to analyze everything we do, and that's what data is those recorded points of history that we can refer to.

[2:54] Kevin Sofen: And why does it seem to be such a challenge to figure out how to create it and what to do with it and how to use that data to make us more efficient and allow firefighters to make better decisions and be safer?

[3:06] Rick Huffman: Well, as we were talking earlier, I think one of the biggest challenges is optimizing a firefighter's time. And when it comes to data, it has to be easy, timely, and probably more importantly, valuable. Because I think if they see a return on their efforts in a way that affects them in a good way, I think that we'll have better data entry. But yeah, that's a challenge. When you come back from calls, and like they were saying earlier in the presentations, less clicks are better.

[3:37] Kevin Sofen: Even if it's not necessarily right, it's easier.

[3:40] Rick Huffman: Totally. You run 10 medical calls, and they're all the same. And it's a challenge to write what you're supposed to write down from certain points of view. But adding extra data points doesn't typically make firefighters happy.

[3:52] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. I know there's a lot of conversation about the evolution going from NFIRS to NERIS. And one aspect is trying to automate aspects of the data collection. And you just mentioned too about just data or technology in general needing to present a value proposition to the fire service where it's going to make them better. It's going to save them time. It's going to allow them to do x. What are some of these other sort of, or maybe some insights or suggestions you could share with us about how to approach integrating tech and integrating something new to the fire service so it doesn't feel like you're forcing it upon them, but sort of making it something that's really gonna help make them better?

[4:35] Rick Huffman: You know, I think part of this is, it goes back to the biggest challenge of fire service, or actually any big corporation is communicating. So I think if we communicate with everybody in a way that we kind of cross pollinate our problems. When the line personnel say they have a certain issue and it's pretty universal, usually we solve that by creating data that supports that problem. And then if we fix it, I think that's how they see the value. So if we hear, if we listen to them and know that it's effective at the line level, then we'll get better buy-off. And then on top of that, we have to be able to make it easy. and the training can't be deadly. You know, it can't be a half hour class that is all about the data. We need something simple that they can use in conjunction maybe with their incident reporting that is easy to do, and then they see a result from it. So.

[5:31] Kevin Sofen: Well, in your time in the fire service and even just here today, I mean, are there any use cases or case studies or examples you can think of, man, that's a good example of there was a problem, and different stakeholders worked together to create a new data, a new way to be implemented, and a new way to allow it to be understood quickly and efficiently. Any sort of success stories that you can think of?

[5:57] Rick Huffman: Well, I can think of actually quite a few. I mean, if you look at the science that's being done at some of the UL and NIST and some of those things, that kind of scientific data really has an impact on what people do or at least how they think about what they're doing. It doesn't necessarily always change a tactic. And now maybe on the local level, looking at data on maybe run results. And let's say you go on 1500 unknown if injury vehicle accidents. And out of that data, you find out that none of them were transported, none of them had any issues or hazards and they were all maybe potentially something you didn't have to go on. I mean, that's the outcome that actually, you know, the crew doesn't have to be putting that kind of danger on maybe fast moving freeways, and your unit availability goes up if you kind of use that kind of data on what to do. Some places, those are valuable calls to go on for other reasons. Some might consider not going on those, so.

[6:56] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and I mean, there's so many conversations happening here at TSI around not just data, but around a lot of different aspects of integrating tech as a piece of the puzzle to help first responders make more informed decisions. We could, there's conversations going on around wildfire, around AI, around community risk reduction. But one that I know you've been a practitioner of in certain ways that I would love to continue to dive into more of is, we first got to know each other based on virtual reality training. And you started doing, well, we both had different, our hands in the pie in terms of how we were using and working with VR. And you'd also mentioned earlier, being a fellow nerd here at the conference, what about immersive learning? What about virtual reality are you doing? And what about immersive simulation excites you?

[7:44] Rick Huffman: Well, first of all, I think I share the same thought with most firefighters or high-risk professions that simulation is good for us. Technology is usually a barrier for us at the same time. So we have to kind of force our way into certain things that are proven to be valuable for us. So I think my feelings on that come from being involved in fire training my entire career. And when I retired from Vancouver Fire in 2016, I was lucky enough to be hired at Concordia University to run their home and security simulation lab. That gave me the opportunity to look into virtual reality with support from Intel and some major corporations. And from that perspective, outside the fire service, I was able to learn a lot more about the technology and the cognitive science of the technology. And then I reentered the fire service. I was a fire chief at a small city outside Portland, Oregon. And how the virtual reality helped us was making it normal. Now this is on the heels of the pandemic, which helps support virtual distance communication. But when I issued each of the fire officers a virtual reality headset, we would meet on once a month and do command officer training, which included simulations and other virtual classroom type things. Now, the value to that in the fire service is that if you're a combination department or a volunteer department, that helps support volunteers or part-timers to where they don't have to necessarily come into the fire station. And I think that was super successful, but it also reminds me that you can't sell any technology to replace real world, either experience or hands-on training. So I think there's a blended application of virtual reality that cannot be forgotten. The acceptance of it'll get tossed out as a toy, just like Chief Munson said, you know, it'll.

[9:45] Kevin Sofen: And I'm a big believer of the phrase, and not or. And it's not necessarily something where you have to be one or the other, but how can VR and immersive learning and AR and really just simulation, some simulation can happen. on your cell phone. It doesn't need to be 3D or you can, there's different ways of how we can use these tools to get the, from the late Bobby Holland would say, getting sets and reps. What are the ways that you can get sets or reps, especially when training can be difficult, whether it's expensive to get your hands on a, doing a live fire burn, whether you're trying to talk about these simulations on high-risk buildings or just high-risk scenarios and thinking about the hundred types of electrical vehicles that exist and how do you know where their batteries are located and what are the best practices in terms of how you approach them, how do you know unless you get practice? And so, I mean, with this idea of sets and reps and kind of integrating simulation to the training protocol, what's your message to other fire service members and even entrepreneurs about how we need to continue to approach integrating this type of technology into the fire service training efforts?

[10:50] Rick Huffman: Well, I think you just said it really well, actually. And the way I can support that is that, you know, from an educator point of view, they like doing blended solutions and I think that applies in the fire service. Sets and reps are probably most thought of on the drill ground, you know, getting muscle memory. Classroom is always good to prep and debrief but I think one of the things that we've challenged ourselves with is trying to train and prepare for the highest risk emergencies, you know, whether that's a like what I'm working on now the multi casualty incidents or take something else, you know, a WUI fire where you're doing structural triage or mid-plane crashes or something that don't happen very often but you'll probably see something major in your career. So how do you train for that? It's hard to do sets of reps on something that you don't get to go on very often. So I think one of the things is that when you identify how virtual reality can benefit that high risk is you put it in a blended solution. You still have the face-to-face communication on how to do, let's say, triage. And then you still go out and you do the hands-on skills of tagging and stop the bleed type things. And then maybe the coordination of the command side of it, of processing all the people I've seen. But the way you fit virtual reality into that is when you get to a point where the crew needs to actually experience that type of call, you put them in virtual reality. And that does a few things. One, you have to have a program that actually is good. And those are available now. The military has been using things for quite a few years and now that tech is available to the civilian world and to our fire services. And so what you do is you put the person in that scenario and they get an experience of being there. And it's not like a full-scale exercise where you have moulage and you have a bunch of people with vests that say evaluators on them And your brain knows you're not really on a scene. And the science proves it. When you put a virtual headset on and you're there, your brain thinks you're there. And I've run through hundreds and hundreds of tests with this and it's been really valuable. But only in small doses. And it's super valuable when you do that.

[13:04] Kevin Sofen: And just to continue to go on that dynamic of how we're tricking our brains by putting ourselves into these other environments using this new technology from getting sets and reps on fires, but then also particularly as we're hearing and seeing the fire service moving from being necessarily just a fire department, but to an all hazards department. And with the big thing being the rise of EMS calls and EMS support, how are you using EMS VR training or where do you see the role of EMS VR training within the preparation of firefighters to be able to do the all hazards response?

[13:43] Rick Huffman: Well, in another lane, the virtual reality programs allow you to build a patient and to present with certain symptoms or presentations or trauma or whatever. And I think there's a program called VR patients and I should have that on board next year, but what it can do for you, and some of the local colleges use it, let's say you have a new protocol that comes out and it's kind of new. Instead of rolling everybody in from their stations to either meet with your physician or meet with your EMS staff, you could have the VR headset at the stations and all they do is put it on and they actually have to use the protocol on a virtual patient. And so that's one example of how you can use it for EMS that just like my previous example with a multi-casual incident, it's another layer of learning that actually feels like you're there and you have to assess the patient and they'll respond to your assessment and treatment. So those are a little better than just maybe having a classroom, talking with a doc, talking with docs always good. But this is a good addition, I feel. And the big value is you don't have to move rigs around, either keep a response area open or have to have coverage. And if you're a sizable department, I guarantee you spend tens of thousands of dollars in diesel to move people around. So there's those layers there's a definitely value add there, and you can capture that with data.

[15:09] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, some of those are maybe the harder to understand where, well, that costs money. It's like, well, what you're doing now also costs money. And there's different cost savings. And I know especially, I mean, there's a lot of different VR companies that will be here at TSI. And just the dynamic of what's the cost of live fire training, what's the cost of overtime in certain ways. And if you can integrate VR as a tool to help reduce moving around cost or overtime cost, or just making the time at the fire department I would say, but more efficient, but if you could just spend 5, 10, 20 minutes and going into different scenarios to train on something to improve, why not?

[15:49] Rick Huffman: You know, I think, you know, we've heard the internet of things, you know, it'd be nice to be the training division of things. You know, I think technology like VR is one thing that you could have in a fire station and you have to normalize it. So I would suggest if you're going to do this, put a fire, a headset in the fire station with a policy. It is kind of like a social media device. You are out there on the internet and you can't be seen by others. I mean, I've been in fire technology work groups in VR and everybody around the world is talking to each other. So you still have to represent yourself. So you gotta have a policy and safety concerns for use of it. But I would suggest people just use it. Use the program and get used to it. And then, you know, there's another avenue we haven't even talked about and it's 360 degree media. You could go out and take a target hazard that is really hard to get into maybe. You could do a VR walkthrough and video it and then put that in every headset in your stations. And anybody anywhere could walk through that high-risk building. And you know how that is. Most stations, only the local ones get to go. And maybe some stations never ever go in that area, but they would on a multi-alarm call.

[16:59] Kevin Sofen: I mean, I got my 360 camera here with me. We can do some 360 walkthroughs. 360 cameras and 360 in general is a great example of being able to, I don't want to say on the cheap, but in some situations, it's being able to get some still shots or get some walkthroughs, not talking about like a heavily produced video, but something where you can get a snapshot and then be able to put that on someone's head and then be able to kind of talk about, tell me what you see. Just from a 360 photo, and talk me through whether, I know it's very big in aspects of arson investigation in terms of getting a snapshot, even sort of evidence documentation, but still just in terms of based on what you're seeing here and I'm putting you into this scenario, talk me through how you would approach this.

[17:43] Rick Huffman: You know, there's so many different avenues. You say you brought your camera with you don't even have to have a person running the camera. You could stick it on a drone and go through a scenario. But I think a quick way of saying this would be there's two ways to do it. Video walkthrough is almost like a helmet cam. You and I could walk through a building, have the camera out in front of us, discuss all the features and hazards of the building, discuss the installed active and passive systems, and then have a better knowledge of that building than we ever had before. And it's repeatable. You know, if you miss a spot, you can rewind it. You know, and then, but on the still picture side, you could take pictures and upload those into a cloud-based VR program and have the whole department walk through while you narrate it like a slideshow. So yeah, there's different ways, and I've done both those.

[18:26] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, and there's also 3D 180, which is, I know it's taking like all the pixels and all the extra capabilities and just putting it into half of the camera, and then it's, I've seen it where 360, it's more flat, and it's still a nice picture, but I have seen now where it's 3D 180 and you see it, and as you can see the texture on your hair and just like the wrinkle on your shirt in a way where it's like my real eyes. So I think that, again, how can that tech be used? And all these things from 3D180 to 360 to both photos to videos to then different aspects of CGI and photorealism, they're all very practical, relevant technologies that are off the shelf that can be used today. And it's a matter of, frankly, people like yourself helping kind of define how it can be used. And I guess one of my questions here before I transition to something else like if someone was like wanting to start tinkering with VR for fire, EMS, police, and whether it was tactical training or sort of incident command strategic training, where would you send them or where would you guide them in terms of kind of figuring out how to start approaching VR technology?

[19:42] Rick Huffman: I think you know back when the NFA was doing the coffee break pamphlets, I helped co-author one of them on how to start up VR and you know really it comes down to go buy a headset you know the popular ones that are out there now they're actually really good the price for entertainment that's why cheap so get one of those buy a 360 camera and out of those two things you would be able to there's off-the-shelf things for emergency responders right now that you can get in these app stores or sideload them so you know if you have somebody that is into that's the second part of this you want to normalize at the crew level but as a system within your department if you have a photo lab or a video lab super easy for them to transition into this otherwise find somebody in your department if you're smaller that has a niche for this and then provide them some editing tools, they're either free or very inexpensive and let them go for it and they'll make it work. So I would say just get one and start using it and reach out to other people that are using it for myself and I'll…

[20:43] Kevin Sofen: I mean if you and I can figure it out, anyone can figure it out.

[20:46] Rick Huffman: There you go. I'm an old guy that likes, you know, has still video games so it's… Yeah. But that's how we got smartphones and computers, you know, the technology is there for us, we just have to apply it.

[20:58] Kevin Sofen: So, at TSI here, anything in particular that you're excited to see, or excited events, or anything that you're excited to see in the next two and a half, three days?

[21:09] Rick Huffman: Actually every day there's something. You know, today is an all-day-to-day, and that's super centering. It's helpful to hear everybody doing the same thing, the importance of GIS, and how some of these technologies, to your point earlier about some of the VR technologies, they're here today. A LiDAR overlaid with 360 mapping and photography is better than it's ever been. And it really started in real estate. And now it's available, and I think iPhones can do it now. But it will be better and easier, so it's about adopting it. But to answer your question, yeah, on the last day we have drones, tomorrow it's all over the place. There's so many topics here about technology integration, but today is really kind of the focus on how to use data and the importance of it's been really good.

[21:56] Kevin Sofen: Great. And if I could give you one last sort of platform to say, you know, any sort of quote or question or challenge that you could leave us with here today to, you know, maybe I guess think in any sort of new way, what would that be?

[22:09] Rick Huffman: I think that's it right there. Think in a new way. We all get stuck in the grind and holy cow, the hamster wheel is moving fast. It's hard to jump off. And I think you just need to find somebody that's an advocate and let them do something. a lot of firefighters out there now that have the tech savvy and point of view that a lot of older firefighters don't have. I think if there's anything we can do to support somebody to try something and not say it's going to replace everything, just try something because there's things out there right now that will help us. It'll help firefighters be more efficient, help reduce injuries, and help with efficiency.

[22:46] Kevin Sofen: Rick, well said. I really appreciate that context and look forward to spend time the next few days and staying in touch in the future.

[22:53] Rick Huffman: Yeah, thank you, Kevin. It was awesome.

[22:55] Kevin Sofen: Of course, till next time. Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Firefighting podcast today. If you enjoyed what you heard and got any value, please drop us a rating, leave us a comment, or reach out to us on social media. Have a great day, and together we can advance the future of smart firefighting.