Episode 291: Driving Change and Innovation in Fire Service Training with Casey Grant

Episode notes

What are measurable, standardized ways to evaluate training across departments?

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!

In this episode:

How immersive learning can draw from military, medical, and other industries

The need for more collaborative forums between the fire service and technology providers

The powerful opportunities AI presents for safety and communication

Hear from Casey Grant - the Executive Director at DSRAE, LLC and a Senior Consultant for ESRG: Energy Safety Response Group LLC .

Casey reflects on the evolution of immersive learning in the fire service and how frameworks like the Training Summit are shaping the future. He highlights lessons from other industries, the importance of co-developing solutions with technology providers, and the urgent need to adapt to generational shifts in how firefighters learn.

Casey shares how rubrics, simulators, and collaborative forums can bring efficiency, standardization, and measurable outcomes to training across departments of all sizes. He also explores both the promise and the risks of artificial intelligence as it begins to intersect with fire service operations.

So take a listen to hear what he has to share!

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

1. 0:00 Intro from the TRAIN summit
2. 4:26 Borrowing from the military and other industries
3. 6:40 Where immersive learning goes next
4. 8:38 Industry and the fire service at one table
5. 10:22 What's next after the summit
6. 12:38 Ten years since the research roadmap
7. 15:35 A hundred years of tradition, and change
8. 17:34 Generations and new technology
9. 20:00 AI on the radio and breathing rate
10. 21:17 AI for press releases in many languages
11. 22:40 Wrap

Questions answered in this episode

What is the TRAIN project and how does it relate to immersive learning in the fire service?

Casey Grant says the TRAIN project follows the FILE project and focuses on developing clear, tangible deliverables for immersive learning. The project creates performance rubrics and frameworks to help technology providers understand what firefighters need.

Hear it at 10:54

Why is multi-user training between fire departments currently difficult?

Casey Grant explains that divergent equipment prevents fire departments from easily conducting drills together. The TRAIN project is working toward creating standards and request-for-proposal templates that organizations like Metro Chiefs can use to require vendors to provide interoperable platforms.

Hear it at 10:54

How does Casey Grant see AI helping the fire service?

Casey Grant points to examples like monitoring radio traffic for keywords such as mayday or trapped to trigger automatic actions, and analyzing breathing rates to determine remaining air supply. Kevin Sofen also provides examples of AI helping create multilingual press releases quickly during emergencies, which Casey agrees with.

Hear it at 17:55

What is augmented reality already being used for in firefighting?

Casey Grant notes that heads-up displays in firefighter face pieces are augmented reality. Firefighters already see information come up on their face piece in real environments, not just training.

Hear it at 13:02

Transcript

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

Ep 291 transcript

Driving Change and Innovation in Fire Service Training with Casey Grant

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Casey Grant

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]. Voice clustering did not separate the two voices in this recording, so every turn was assigned by hand from the wording.

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome back to the Smart Firefighting podcast today we're at the train summit where leaders from across the fire service, research and industry are tackling one big question. How can immersive learning make training better, faster and safer. From virtual reality can boost, bring more you've sort of become almost [inaudible 1:14] thank you It

[2:26] Casey Grant: And for [inaudible 2:27] some real opportunities here. And part of this whole [inaudible 3:16]

[3:56] Kevin Sofen: have just it's not that and duplicate, you know, how can we rip off and duplicate what other industries are doing and apply it to the fire service? So what are your thoughts on that?

[4:33] Casey Grant: Well, sure. And the fire service is traditionally the big market for a lot of these technology of they are big, you know, marketplaces for some of those groups. And so, but it fits with us in the fire service just as well. And that said, And that said, we even have a lot of people, of course, from the military, you know, we're in the fire service. So, you know, that's not uncommon at all. And we want to realize the opportunities that are there. And, you know, change can be challenging. That's that's just normal human nature. But we also don't want to get left in the dust. And, you know, we all have our handheld portable devices that we have with us. I have an iPhone with me, for instance, and I can tell you 20 years ago, none of us had concepts that toll booths were going to go away, taxis were going to become rarer and rarer. You can go on and on, that you'd just be doing all your banking from your phone at home in terms of depositing checks or whatever. The world is dramatically changing. We need to keep up, and we're back to there's many great things that go on today our training and education environment, but then we have things that are hard to do, and they shouldn't be. And it personally drives me crazy when I can get grandsons literally using devices and they're playing with people in other countries and whatever they're doing. And there's interactive activities. We use the fire service training. It's like, what? That's outrageous. And we, you know, we've got to get the parades going down the street, where if fire department X wants to do a drill with fire department Y and fire department Z, they should be able to do that with whatever that, you know, we're using here, whether it's incident command or driver simulators or whatever.

[6:40] Kevin Sofen: So you mentioned on some of those, you know, incident command, driver simulator, pump panel. I mean, there's some of these initial pillars that I know the file summit and the train summit has kind of focused on almost to kind of go now the next step on that like where do you see immersive learning and the kind of impact of what's happening here, the impacts in the next one to five years and how again the combination of these performance rubrics and then just the kind of general change management. Where do you see immersive learning in the fire service in the next one to five years?

[7:10] Casey Grant: Well, I do see the fire service evolving and looking forward into the crystal ball is challenging these days.

[7:17] Kevin Sofen: Please tell me Casey.

[7:19] Casey Grant: It is challenging and that timeframe of shortening, we used to have like looking ahead 30 years, then 10 years, then five years.

[7:26] Kevin Sofen: How about one year? Where are we going to be at?

[7:29] Casey Grant: And I will go backwards and say when we did the research roadmap for firefighting, that was 10 years ago. And all this stuff that we were talking about, a lot of it is happening, happened. And so clearly we, the world, are low hanging fruit in terms of what people can relate to and can see with the rubrics for instance, like, oh, you know, we're getting this all packaged together so that you can see it in a snapshot. And while some of it may be stating the obvious, on the other hand, the technology providers are like, what do you people do? And tell us, help us help you. Well, that's what we're doing here. And we're laying it out. So this is what we do. This is what we need. You need to create these software programs and so forth that fit our needs. And that's really what we're providing.

[8:38] Kevin Sofen: And I will say that's one of the things that I'm most impressed about with this whole forum that you and Ken have created is this environment to allow industry and the fire service to cohabitate, collaborate, just kind of really talk through the challenges, the pros, the cons, and really drive towards development. And there are some great vendors out there that I know are making some fire service members very happy because they're actually the most important thing. leading toward leading to actual measurable outcomes of learning retention, actually leading towards firefighters and first responders obtaining more higher levels of proficiency. And I think a lot of that comes back to kind of having the ability to evaluate, having the industry partners kind of working other aspects of the fire service.

[9:28] Casey Grant: Well, yes, and we absolutely want to continue. We've got to remember the fire service, as much as we are cohesively the same in a lot of what we do, we're different as well. And big metro departments have lots of resources versus volunteer departments, which are many, and they struggle with whatever they've got to make it work. So we've got to really work with everybody. So if we're able to have a where we can be more efficient, for instance. You're back to, you know, even for volunteer departments that really have limited resources. You know, this can be significant in trying to reach, you know, all the firefighters that are out there because there's many. And that's a tall order, and this is, you know, this is what we're striving for.

[10:22] Kevin Sofen: So we're here at the summit, it's May 2025, and this is, again, a continuation from my knowledge, from my knowledge, you know, this sort of idea, I don't know if it was sparked or formed around 2020 when this kind of application for the AFG grant happened, and then there's some virtual summits, and then the in-person summits. I kind of asked you whether you see this going, but what's next for train after this summit? What's the follow

[10:54] Casey Grant: news here is, you know, we had the file project and now we're in the train project. The train has left the station, the train's coming down the tracks. We have clear tangible deliverables. And I personally think they're robust, they're meaty, they're significant, they're relevant and impactful. And now we are somewhat careful as we do these projects. We don't, instance directly submits items into the NFPA standards system. We leave that for others to do, but we're setting it up so that can be done relatively in a straightforward manner as well as other things. And I do want to say, even with multi-user training platforms, which we're back to, it's like, why can't we do drills between multiple fire departments here more readily? And yet we've got divergent equipment that won't allow us to do that and we don't want that. Well, we're heading in a direction, for instance, where it's like, you know what, we want to put in our report, an RFP that can directly be used by organizations with clout, whether it's the North America fire training directors or the Metro chiefs or whoever it is to say, look, all you people out there with driver give us this because we in Metro Chiefs, for instance, we want to be able to use it all at the same time, interactively, [inaudible 12:26]

[12:38] Kevin Sofen: officially the 10-year anniversary, as you look at from when you helped write it in 2015 to where we are now, what are one, two, or any sort of tangible case studies examples you can point to of it was sort of dreamed up or thought of, and now it's something that's kind of actually helping deliver firefighter outcomes with better safety, better decision-making, things like that.

[13:02] Casey Grant: So yes, a lot of what we were looking at back then was really starting to come of age and so was the rest of the world. And I'm back to saying with my personal handheld device here, I mean, this was a newer thing even then, today it's like, what do we do without this thing? Yeah, it's incredible. This is a portal into another universe, but we're clearly seeing things and I'm going to just pick on concepts that keep arising here with this project, like virtual reality and augmented reality, which has been around for a while, but it's escalating significantly and things that are happening. But we already are using in the fire service, not in training, but in the real environment heads-up displays. That's augmented reality. I mean, you're looking through your face piece and you're seeing whatever, come up on, you know, your face piece, which is good information. That's what we're seeking to do. And I will say I see it all around me and I'll pick another [inaudible 14:07] his eyes and do what needs to be done. Okay. Wow. Yeah. So it's sort of like we're seeing this everywhere around us all the time and we're back to how are we using this or should we be using it in the fire service? And I do want to just say some of these things are on board us as equipment, personal protective or whatever. Some of it's with our units and our apparatus or whatever. But some of it is much bigger than that and gets us into what's going on with intercommunication between jurisdictions and getting FirstNet and all this other stuff. So it's got levels of involvement here. There's true realms of activity. And that's where we're seeing the advances across the board. But it's just like when boiling something and it jumps out, versus if it's hot water to start with. That's not what it's about. It's very slow and it's happening so that we're not really noticing it and we're just taking it for, you know, granted that I don't know, I mean, autonomous driving, who's that? Is that ever going to happen? Well, guess what? It's happening.

[15:35] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. And on that, I mean, I've said this phrase a few times and I know some people hate it, but the dynamic of 100 years of tradition unimpeded by progress. I've been a very big proponent recently of like, it's just not true. It's just the fact that change is just happening at a maybe a little bit lower pace than happens in other industries. But we are seeing, in certain ways, the right kinds of technologies being integrated. And you are seeing a lot of aspects of the fire service being open to change. It just needs to be done in the right way, in a thoughtful manner. And this sort of example of immersive learning integrated with frameworks, with rubrics, to where it's not just, hey, here's this cool tool. You know, it's $50,000, take it, buy it, cool, buy. But instead, kind of looking at how the more thoughtful approach to thinking about it, planning for it, implementing it, training on it, extracting value at it, and I think we would agree that the fire service is actually very open to change.

[16:31] Casey Grant: Yes, yeah, no, I do believe, and I will say, the fire chain, my involvement with the fire service over the past four to five decades, I used to ride the back step at Prince at Prince George's County way back in the 70s, and we've come a long way, And we [inaudible 16:54] they can't even comprehend, like, why is that even a problem? Just do this. It's. Pretty easy. It's easy. Whereas the other side, the other end of the spectrum, it's the reverse. And so, you know, so it does take time for those shifts to occur.

[17:33] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. And just to speak on that generational evolution from the boomer to all the way to gen beta now and everything in between from alpha and Gen X, the millennial Gen Z. Why is it? What are your thoughts on the generational differences and how, we need to think about that when integrating new technology into the fire service and any messaging to both the fire service or industry.

[17:55] Casey Grant: Well, again, I think this is true, not just with the fire service. And I've always very much enjoyed Dr. Lori Moore's presentation on the generational differences, what I've seen several times now. And there are very significant differences. But the world's changing, rapidly. And I do, you know, I do take comfort that, and I'm a boomer. Well, we use these things, too. I mean, and I admit that some are more advanced than others or whatever, and that's true of everything. But I do see the world shifting at a rapid rate, much more than it ever has in history. And I personally think it's a good thing. I do want to just add here, there's been some really significant game-changing things that have happened even in the 10 years since the Artificial intelligence, never [inaudible 18:46] Thank you very much. examples like one that excited me seeing with the University of New Mexico was working on a project recognizing voice traffic on the radio and using . Algorithms to sift out keywords like yeah what if you do hear the word mayday or here trapped or just certain ding you know should there be automatic actions that occur in terms of whatever it may be whether it's to you to open some dedicated channel or do something. And another one that they were working on was not monitoring how much air was in your thing, but your breathing rate. And actually, as they were indicating, everybody's breathing rate can be as unique as your fingerprint and using that to determine how much air you had left. Yeah, and I thought, oh, that's quite interesting. Has anybody done this? I'm not aware of it, but. Yeah.

[20:52] Kevin Sofen: Well, on that AI note, when I think of some of the do often think of that real-time radio transcription, and to where it's a good example of where your human brain can handle so much, especially in the heat of the moment. But if you can have some type of real-time radio transcription going on that isn't telling you every word and flagging everything, but flagging the one or two key important things that, hey, this was said, or hey, this is important, and then bringing that to your attention Right. Another example I know working with Chad Kraus from St. Lucie Fire Department and Scott Roseberry of Garland Fire Department, they're both very much AI practitioners within the fire service now. They're both battalion chiefs. And they gave a presentation at FDIC the other week, and they were talking about the need to be able to create a press release and not only be able to do it quickly and fastly, but to do it in multiple languages. And if you're thinking you have a floodwater and you have a Spanish speaking population, you need to create a radio advertisement that says, hey, flood water coming, leave your home and take the proper precautions and have that in three languages and being able to get to the radio station out. You could do that now in a matter of three minutes. Yep, or less. Or less. And just those being, again, simple, pragmatic ways. And then another thing, John Oates talks a lot about what are ways that AI can be sort of an ideation partner, not replacing the human brain, It's kind of helping with some of the sense-making.

[22:18] Casey Grant: Yep, and I absolutely would agree with that, yeah.

[22:22] Kevin Sofen: So I mean, talk about Pandora's box with AI, I mean.

[22:26] Casey Grant: It raises, yes, there's a lot of things come out of that box, and we are seeking those good things, but this is where some of those things can go the other way, and this is where we've got to be on our toes.

[22:40] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, well, we're 24 minutes in, I know we started around one in five minutes, which I believe I'm leading. So I think I'm going to unfortunately cut this kind of short. But I think we need to I need more Casey on the Smart Firefighting podcast.

[22:55] Casey Grant: Always glad to join you and provide whatever. , you know, we're proud of what we did before and what's happening now. And thank you so much for what all you do.

[23:06] Kevin Sofen: Thank you. We're keeping the ball bouncing and excited to continue to just make a positive dent here in the world and helping the fire service out, so. Thanks, Casey.

[23:17] Casey Grant: Great, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it.

[23:18] Kevin Sofen: Cheers. Thanks for joining another episode of the Smart Firefighting Podcast. We hope you learned something today, and if so, please consider leaving us a review or a comment so we can keep creating the best content for you. Have a great day, and thanks for all that you do for public safety.