Episode 318: Training Is Lived, Not Lectured - VR Training for Firefighters with Evan Sitler-Bates and Drew MacNeil from XpertVR

Episode notes

Firefighters train all year, but most of it is death by PowerPoint. Evan Sitler-Bates and Drew MacNeil , co-founders of XpertVR, are building a different answer: immersive virtual reality simulations where firefighters actually do the work instead of watching someone describe it.

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, Kevin sits down with the XpertVR founders to dig into how their platform works, what fire departments are actually using it for, and why lived experience sticks when lectures don't.

Topics covered:

- Why XpertVR chose first responders over corporate training

- The "training is lived, not lectured" philosophy and what it means in practice

- How sandbox environments let departments customize scenarios to their specific community risks

- The San Diego Fire Department case study: 350+ firefighters through VR training in 21 days

- The Ontario College result: best-prepared pre-service students in 13 years

- Memory retention research: 20% from a PowerPoint vs. 80% from VR after a year

- Lithium ion fire scenarios and what they reveal about modern fire training gaps

- Hardware, software, and data: what XpertVR captures while firefighters train

- How to actually implement VR in a department, not just buy it and shelve it

- Where VR fits in the training ecosystem: and, not or

So take a listen to hear what they have 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
2. 2:04 Why first responders
3. 5:36 Engineering the product
4. 7:06 The training library
5. 8:49 Sandbox mode
6. 11:59 Why lived experience sticks
7. 15:18 How often firefighters can train
8. 17:07 Communication and command skills
9. 18:36 Data and hardware-agnostic design
10. 22:54 Budgets and grants
11. 25:07 Customer stories
12. 28:19 Where VR will be in five years
13. 33:03 Words to live by

Questions answered in this episode

What is the main advantage of VR training compared to phone or tablet-based training?

Evan Sitler-Bates says that with a phone or tablet people multitask, but when firefighters put on a VR headset they are fully immersed in the environment, cannot pull out their phone, and experience excitement from being at the fire ground even though they are just in their classroom.

Hear it at 4:08

How does XpertVR's sandbox approach differ from timeline-based VR simulations?

Evan Sitler-Bates explains that many VR companies force users through a strict timeline where the simulation does not move forward unless steps are completed in order. XpertVR lets crews move freely, so someone can freelance and run into the house making mistakes right away, while trainers can guide them through their department's SOGs.

Hear it at 10:25

Why is memory retention better with VR than reading text or watching video?

Evan Sitler-Bates says VR creates an actual memory because the user is immersed in the world and their brain is tricked into thinking they are interacting with tools, rescuing patients, and putting out fires. When they see a similar fire or building in the real world, they pull back on a memory instead of just text they read.

Hear it at 11:59

What specific skills does XpertVR focus on for in-between training?

Evan Sitler-Bates says communication and command are the biggest skill sets. Eight people in VR together can practice incident command, search and rescue, and fire suppression, with constant communication about where they are in the building, whether they found a patient or the seat of the fire, and how to update command.

Hear it at 17:07

How often can firefighters train with VR compared to live fire?

Drew MacNeil says they have talked to stations that get to fire training grounds maybe one day a year because of geographic location, availability, and weather. VR allows training 24-7, 365 when at the station, and headsets are ready to go in about five minutes.

Hear it at 15:18

Transcript

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

Ep 318 transcript

Training Is Lived, Not Lectured - VR Training for Firefighters with Evan Sitler-Bates and Drew MacNeil from XpertVR

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Evan Sitler-Bates, Drew MacNeil

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] Evan Sitler-Bates: But we get out a headset and say, all right, you have to get in this headset with your crew and you're in. Now you can't pull out your phone and you're fully immersed in that environment. And the excitement that we see from these firefighters as they get fully immersed, they're like, whoa, I'm actually at the fire ground, even though they're just in their classroom. So that excitement is always getting us to make sure that our simulations are accessible and exciting so that people can get in and actually use it as a training

[0:28] Drew MacNeil: tool.

[0:30] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to the Smart Firefighting podcast. Kevin Sofen here, where we cover all things related to the future of smart technology for first responders around the world. Please enjoy the show and let me know what you want to learn about next. What's going on? Today I am joined with Evan Sitler and Drew McNeil, the co-founders at XpertVR, a Canadian company on a mission to help people learn from action segments through immersive virtual reality simulations. They've worked with colleges, fire departments and public safety agencies to bring a realistic training into a headset, not just a textbook. [inaudible 1:03]

[2:04] Evan Sitler-Bates: area [inaudible 2:34]

[3:34] Kevin Sofen: one thing that I really appreciate with all things training in general and especially,

[4:08] Evan Sitler-Bates: content to then now how it's actually delivered to phone while the [inaudible 4:39] And people are multitasking,, but we get out a headset and say, all right, you have to get in this headset with your crew and you're in. Now you can't pull out your phone and you're fully immersed in that environment. And the excitement that we see from these firefighters as they get their classroom. So that excitement is always getting us to make sure that our simulations are accessible and exciting so that people can get in and actually use it as a training tool.

[5:36] Kevin Sofen: Drew from like a product development perspective. And as you kind of think about engineering this from ideas to words on paper, software and building these experience, how

[6:01] Drew MacNeil: think back to kind of the first time I actually put on a VR headset. doing actions, you know, getting that muscle memory and really driving on the point that, the skills learning are like process basically doing that process over and over again.

[6:41] Kevin Sofen: And then now , what is the product? [inaudible 6:49] the hardware, the software, and some of the training experience that exist today. Yeah,

[7:06] Evan Sitler-Bates: So there's an ever evolving library of training modules. So basically we put it into three buckets. We have [inaudible 7:29] large, highways and rural highways. And with these environments not only needing to know how to or learning how to deal with these lithium ion fires, but knowing how to be aware of the other emergencies and things that could happen in these scenarios if you don't follow the right procedure. So for example, you might see an EV fire in a garage and you're rushing to the garage to put out that fire but there's an e-scooter right beside the door, right beside your hose line that if heat gets over there and the fire gets over there it could explode and sever your hose line and now you don't have any water pressure and you're stuck in. This building. So building out these scenarios allow you to practice what if situations. I mean, we've built them in this sandbox way where us or our fire departments we're working with can build them themselves And allow you to practice whatever is needed for your fire department.

[8:49] Drew MacNeil: Yeah. I think another thing to touch on from the sandbox side of things is it actually allows scenarios to be completed in a multitude of different ways. So, as we were at a recent we're at a recent fire station, you know, they broke up into four different groups. And, you know, we laid them out in the same scenario, patient placements with the exact same fire. Placement was the exact same and all four different groups had different CA and Fire. [inaudible 9:08]

[9:46] Kevin Sofen: sandbox [inaudible 9:47]

[10:00] Evan Sitler-Bates: being able to design your own sandcastle, your pick your own environment, what objects go into that environment, what skill sets are going to be practicing today. So you're you're designing that and allowing it to be completely built for your department. But then number two on the sandbox side is jumping into that experience and not having specific goals that you're trying to reach lots of companies out there in the VR space, they build it out in a timeline where

[10:24] Drew MacNeil: In the fire example, you arrive on

[10:25] Evan Sitler-Bates: on scene. First thing you need to do is do your 360, second thing you need to do is force entry on a door. If you don't follow things in that step, the simulation doesn't move forward. Whereas how we design our simulations, you are jumping in with your crew and somebody could go freelance and run into the house and make mistakes right away and move throughout that environment in the way that they want to. Whereas if you are outside as a trainer, you can say these are the SOGs we are practicing today and we're going to be going through. And those are from your department and the right procedures that your department has set.

[11:01] Drew MacNeil: Yeah, those mistakes that are made as well, like they end up with repercussions, right? So like Evan mentioned, if you take too long on your point of entry, the fire spread past the point of being able to put it out. Now, you know, this enables additional practices to happen when you're in a scenario, you know, you can do a clean run where you're doing everything exactly how your training officer wants. But if you stray away from that, it may lead to other things that need to be done within the scenario before you actually complete it.

[11:23] Kevin Sofen: And I think that's the beauty of VR is that you're really trying to get people to not just kind of see it, but feel it, experience it, and get into that true stress inoculation and creating that stress response. And maybe even from kind of a macro VR perspective, I mean, why does lived VR experience, and being able to experience these different 3DOF, 360 environments, what's the psychology behind in terms of how that is just that much more effective from a learning and delivery, a delivery mechanism than just watching a 2D screen or being talked at.

[11:59] Evan Sitler-Bates: Yeah, it really comes down to the memory retention because when you're being talked at or watching a screen you're just kind of reading text and it's not building muscle memory. It's something that your brain has to note down and has to be able to pull up pull up that information in the future just by referencing text or some video that you saw. Whereas in VR, it's actually a memory that you're reading, because you're immersed in that world. Your eyes, your senses, your brain is being tricked that you're actually in that virtual world and that you're actually interacting with your tools, rescuing patients, putting out fires so that when you get into the real world and you see a similar fire or you see a similar building and know how it might, where people might be based on the time of day and those sorts of things, that's a memory that you're now pulling back on Wish is just some text that you read.

[12:47] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I mean, I think about it from my college or MBA experiences. And frankly, most of my learning happened outside the classroom and with other people. [inaudible 12:59] And again, just this nature too of just resources are scarce and first responders being asked to do more with less. We just need training to continue to do more with less. We need training to be able to allow us to create better outcomes for the first responders. And the curious as I have this running thought going of being able to do more with less from, again, first responders being strapped with having limited resources. also like there's the geographically displaced there's kind of like the ability to you know actually I can't get in a car and go and spend the whole day to and go into the training academy how do you see this continued rise of the virtual reality training technology the software you built is like enabling first responders to you know over out punch their weight class and doing more with less yeah I think first I should preface

[14:08] Evan Sitler-Bates: that we're not trying to replace live burns like live burns and if you can go to that type of training, it's definitely very beneficial and it's not something we're trying to replace. We're trying to replace that in between time or that before you go to those live burns or before you go to the actual emergency and what we're seeing here is you can have a whole classroom, a whole fire ground in a box where you just have this pelican case that's available to you open it up and within five minutes you're able to train. So if you only have half an hour because there's rest time between shifts or you're waiting for dinner to be cooked, you can just open up that box and go through a set and a rep or maybe multiple sets of reps. So it just allows them to train more often and have accessibility to that training. But then also when it comes to the resource management and doing more with less, you can practice having limited resource, whether that's limited water or only one tick per truck, all those sorts of things can be limited within the simulation. So you're practicing with what you would actually have in the real world. And it's allowing the firefighters to be ready for those real world situations where they have those limited resources.

[15:18] Drew MacNeil: And to really drive home the point on, like how often firefighters are able to train, you know, we've talked to stations where they have maybe one day a year they can they can get to the fire grounds based on, you know, the geographic location they mentioned, just the availability. Weather's also a major concern. No one wants to train in the freezing cold or blistering hot in full bunker gear. So this allows, you know, you know, like Evan mentioned, a lot more sets and reps, and you know, a very quick amount of time. Basically, 24-7, 365 when you're at the station, those headsets are ready to go.

[15:48] Kevin Sofen: I mean, I couldn't agree more. That's the dynamic of and, not, or. It's not one or the other. It is this complimentary supplementary virtual reality simulation sandbox training and live fire training, but you don't have the ability to go to the live fire tower all the time. We needed, you know, Bobby Houghton had told this word, said this phrase to me that the sets and reps, how do you continue to get sets and reps? And he said that to me when I was at FDIC, it might have been in like 2017 or-18 when I was hanging out with Alex Harvey, shout out from River and in kind of this, again, the ability to get sets and reps. but you mentioned that and of course your technology is focused on niches and there are companies out there that have other niches but that in between kind of training and kind of the kind of skill sets again that's maybe not necessarily hose handling training and obviously there's other companies that do stuff like that but like what are some of these specific skill sets that are like hey these are tangible skills and again, aligning it with like fire department SOPs and training guidelines and outcomes like when you think of the in-between training that's needed aligned with those specific skill sets like what get granular and nerd out for me What are some of those like specific granular in-between training examples and skill sets that people can train on with XpertVR?

[17:07] Evan Sitler-Bates: Looking at those in-between skill sets communication and command are the biggest that we're seeing a lot of feedback on how beneficial it is to train with expert fire You can fire rescue a patient, you can do those things, throw ladders in the simulations. But something we noticed very early on about VR is that you're not going to have the physical weight of throwing a ladder or the physical feel of holding a hose line. And so we're able to simulate that to do those actions, you can get the sets and reps of what to do. But really it's about that communication because you can practice holding and throwing ladders in the real world, but bringing that together with your crew so that you have eight people in VR together on a fire, somebody's taking on the incident command role and other people are writ search and rescue, fire suppression, and you have to communicate throughout that whole process of where are you in the building? Have you found a patient? Have you found the seat of the fire? What is going on? And having that constant communication and knowing how to update your command is a huge area of skills that we've seen that lots of fire departments are lacking because they haven't faced many fires or haven't faced many , these newer scenarios like lithium ion. So they don't know how to communicate those things [inaudible 18:21]

[18:36] Kevin Sofen: but there's so many different data points that now the hardware has enabled us to capture. And I know there's so many other nuances within the VR tech, but there's all these data points that I know you can now capture from what the hardware allows you to do and then also the software that you're embedding within the technology. What are some of these data points that you can now capture and have you kind of uncovered any sort of interesting data points data points in terms of again like how people make decisions when they're under stress you know where are their eyes looking and you know again curious on like the evolution of the hardware and sort of what that's nowly what enabled you to do to kind of look at what data you can capture while people are enduring the training process. Yeah first on the hardware side of things we are

[19:24] Evan Sitler-Bates: are hardware agnostic we work with an open source development pipeline so we can work with any hardware that's out there technically we do lean towards Pico headsets because they're They're kind of enterprise-ready. They're the best on the market for the enterprise use case. And they're the leader in the XR space for it. And so with that, like you said, yeah, we're able to capture gaze data of where were people looking, transcripts of what did they say and highlight certain keywords that we're looking for them to say and tracking obviously the time, when did they suppress the fire? When did they rescue patients? And basically every granular piece of data that you might wanna track, we can track while somebody's in VR . [inaudible 20:25] in a bathtub or in a small closet, people miss that. And being able to introduce people to yes, there might be somebody hiding in a closet or in a bathtub now allows them to remember that data point, so that when they are in a real search,

[21:13] Kevin Sofen: yeah i mean it's been it's amazing to look So it's been a decade now, and obviously I know it's been in fruition for longer than that, but it's very encouraging to see how much the headsets continue to cost, continue to somewhat normalize and come down. I'm sure that headset manufacturers find other ways to continue to increase the price of them for other reasons. But nonetheless, the affordability of those products have now enabled some other cool applications and enabled companies like ExtraVR to now deliver unique solutions on top of it. So that's exciting. And ultimately, again, I'm thinking about VR objectively. It's like, it's a great tool. It's another, it's and not or, it's not one or the other. But I also know with some fire departments or public safety, whomever. So, some may say, yeah, bike kits are tough and they can be. But also, in some regards, it can be easy just to buy a new piece of technology. Someone can find $10,000, $50,000, whatever it may cost and just buy the hardware and software. But it's sometimes easy to do that. But I'm curious, in your experience, what creates the best path for success to implement these kinds of tools from a procurement standpoint, but truly an adoption standpoint, and actually squeezing the lime on getting the most out of these virtual reality training tools like ExpertVR with the combination of the hardware, the software, again, how to use it. What have you found to be a recipe for success to ensure that you can effectively implement a virtual reality training program within your training operations?

[22:54] Evan Sitler-Bates: Yeah, like you said, obviously, the budget side is one whole side to it. And we've helped with applying to grants and doing regional deployments where we bring multiple departments together to deploy across that region and rotate the headsets and the software. So there's all kinds of things that we can do there. The other side, like you're saying, is the actual full deployment and the process there. And I think number one is having a champion, having somebody that's a direct contact that's going to lead up the VR side of things. So whether that be the training officer, training chief, or somebody that just loves VR within the department, normally most departments we go to, there's somebody that has a VR headset and has kind of brought it around and they already like the technology and are kind of used to it. So bringing that person on and kind of bringing them into the fold is number one there so that they can make sure that people are getting into the headsets answer questions in person when we're not there, when we're not available. Number two is putting to plan and exact processes to follow when going through the training. Now we've been helping a lot of fire departments put together these lessons plans and put together these processes, so that it's very easy to adopt and deploy. But San Diego Fire Department's a great example. We've been working with them for two years.. They have a leader there, Jafari Harris, Captain at San Diego Fire, who's been leading up the VR deployment. And he's put together full process packages ofs of multiple documents of, all right, if you're a trainer on the day of the VR training day, here's some documents for you to read through. If you're a firefighter on the day of, some documents to read through so that you're, you know, then having lesson plans attached to that so that they know, okay, today we're training on X, Y, or Z and this is how we're going to train

[24:38] Kevin Sofen: on it when we go through VR. So you mentioned now two end users, you know, someone in Canada, now in California, are you able to talk more about the end users? I mean, I kind of how they're using the technology and what they're using it for. I'd love to hear kind of kind of specific use case examples about how those, you know, your early customers are, you know, what are they using it for, how are they using it, any early success stories and wins from their operations?

[25:07] Evan Sitler-Bates: Yeah, I can touch on San Diego, then I'll pass it over to Drew to talk about the Ontario government. Both are kind of a little bit different. San Diego obviously bought it as a city, so they've been rotating the headsets between all of the stations underneath them, and so that's been really successful where they can go kind of week by week. Each station gets access to the technology for about a week. They have a training day available where they put all the firefighters in that station through the training. And they've been using it mostly for search and rescue tactics and the communication that comes with that. We worked with them specifically to build out a five-story residential apartment building with a commercial level on the first floor. So something that's been popping up all over San Diego as well as other cities. and that allows them to practice the specific tactics for that building that's becoming very popular. But then

[26:21] Drew MacNeil: Yeah, and some of our early days and our first customer within the emergency services space, [inaudible 26:33] a big win that came out of that during their first semester was essentially they had a student going through. We set up a scenario where there was four patients in the basement. She went down there solo, wasn't able to really gather her thoughts and things that she had learned from the PowerPoints in terms of what to do next. And in the virtual environment ended up running out of oxygen and blacking out in the basement. Now, fast forward to her completing , the next two or three VR sessions, she went to the first lab burn and absolutely crushed

[27:15] Kevin Sofen: So that's, you know, just one case ago, and I'm sure you guys as well, but again, it's with how fast tech is moving. And we haven't even said the buzzword, artificial intelligence, AI. But as you think about, again, it's 2026, and even fast-forwarding five years. What's your guys' take on what does normal training look like for first responders, whether it's in Canada, U.S., around the world? You know, where do you see VR as a piece of the puzzle? And how do you continue to see the system evolve, and what role does VR play in that?

[28:19] Evan Sitler-Bates: I think there's an ideal state, and there's where we'll likely actually be in five years. So I think the Ontario government is a great example of where we'll likely be and what we're building towards that ideal state. So we've been working with the Ontario government for over a year now deploying our simulations with the Ministry of Labour, and now we're about to deploy our lithium ion modules with them to all 437 departments across the province. And how that rollout is starting and how I think a lot of fire departments over the next five years are going to start rolling it out is where there is a case of headsets, usually 10 head heads can be rotated throughout stations. So the OFM here in Ontario, Office of the Fire Marshal, they have 40 headsets, so for purchasing their own hardware I think is a great start. And where most fire departments are gonna get their first hands on with the VR technology. As we look into the future, S I think more and more fire departments are going to be looking to purchase their own hardware sets so that they can have constant access to that hardware and the software as it updates as new scenarios like lithium ion or other new types of emergencies become available within the technology. And I guess with that as well, I think there's gonna be a lot more collaboration. We're seeing it already within Ontario where, like Drew said, you have four crews going in and they all train differently, they've all practiced different procedures. Being able to get that knowledge between that station, that department, but then across the province and across the nation. across North America, is going to be really interesting as that knowledge spreads and is used to improve everybody's training and how they actually react in the real world.

[30:09] Kevin Sofen: Drew, what's your hot take?

[30:10] Drew MacNeil: Yeah, you know, this is obviously in need of technology advancing a little bit further, but you know, like Evan mentioned, when we built that custom environment for San Diego, that was out of a need within their specific community. Now, you know, they the type of environment popping up all over the place, a five story high rise apartments and they needed to practice communication skills on a very specific thing to their location. Now I see with what we're building out, you know, possibly the integration of AI and different tools along that is that as communities evolve and change, fire departments are actually going to be able to practice the situations that they are unable to prepare. To prepare for because buildings haven't been built yet, they have no facilities to actually replicate these types of environments. I think that's where VR is really going to come in handy in terms of being able to actually to scale up scenarios in a very quick amount of time to adapt to what's changing in the real world.

[30:59] Kevin Sofen: Well, it's exciting to see where we're at and where we're going, and maybe it's also a little terrifying, but more so exciting to think about how technology like this can continue to be a force multiplier and help first responders that need to continue to out-kick their way class, out-punch their way class, out-kick their coverage. The final question I want to I want to ask you guys is you got any mic drop moments or favorite quotes or anything you kind of live by so that'll be the final question I asked but I'm curious before that is, you know, are there looking back at when you start with XpertVR and you know, thinking about what you may be maybe yourself five years ago, as you are kind of building tools for public safety and whether you are it's VR, AI and or any kind of hardware. I mean, what do you think you wish you knew when you first started and, you know, what would your message be to other people? message be to other people that are trying to build collaboratively and effectively with public safety? Yeah, I think it

[32:01] Evan Sitler-Bates: it comes down to the passion and the excitement. Public safety, as all of us here know, and I think most listeners know, they move slowly, it takes time to get in with government and especially with new technology, get them to adopt new technologies. So having the passion of being excited to actually go [inaudible 32:18]

[32:42] Drew MacNeil: getting the early stages into people's hands drastically changed in terms of, you know, crazy features that we wanted to build out that we thought would take, you

[33:03] Kevin Sofen: lecture that maybe that's more for XpertVR, but any words of wisdom or final quotes or any final things you could leave us with here today?

[33:11] Evan Sitler-Bates: Yeah, I think going back to one of your earlier points, I think just building as open source as possible is a big point for a lot of people in this space and a big thing to keep in mind. We've seen a lot of companies enter that build for a specific piece of hardware or specific piece of software, and then it gets discontinued or something else that's way better comes out, and now these companies are completely hurt and can't move forward. So building on that open source pipeline has just been a huge thing for us to make sure that we can support firefighters where they're already at and where technology is heading.

[33:43] Drew MacNeil: Yeah, my side, I think patience and momentum are two very important aspects to consider. Things that

[33:51] Kevin Sofen: thought would at FDIC mid-April. Looking forward to it as well. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Kevin. 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