Episode 328: 300 Firefighters in 3.5 Weeks: How San Diego Built VR Search and Rescue Training with Captain J Harris

Episode notes

Most fire crews get few real repetitions on search and rescue. The calls are rare. The training is expensive. It takes companies out of service, and it adds injury and exposure risk.

San Diego Fire-Rescue built a different path.

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.

Captain J Harris leads the program. The department partnered with XpertVR and built structured virtual reality training. Every riding position has role based benchmarks. The curriculum ties to UL FSRI research and the Firefighter Rescue Survey's first 3,000 rescues.

In the first rollout, more than 300 firefighters trained in three and a half weeks. The schedule filled. Crews asked when they could come back.

Topics covered:

The four problems VR training solves: time, cost, injury risk, and gear exposure

How San Diego worked through fire service skepticism

The no fault learning environment

Benchmarks built from the first 3,000 rescues data

Targeted search and high percentage areas

Training is lived, not lectured

Shared crew rescue experiences and peer learning

Three scenarios: passerby report, text from a trapped victim, single call smoke report

The rollout: 300 firefighters in three and a half weeks

What comes next: command training and hazmat scenarios

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 Kevin's intro: VR search and rescue training in San Diego
2. 1:27 The problems VR solves: time, cost, and injury risk
3. 2:48 Working through fire service skepticism with a pilot
4. 5:09 Structured learning outcomes and benchmarks
5. 6:09 Benchmarks for every riding position
6. 8:47 Knowing what right looks like
7. 10:26 Targeted search and high percentage areas
8. 12:03 Lived, not lectured
9. 13:03 Shared crew experiences and seeing through the trainee's eyes
10. 15:27 Peers as teachers: where the learning happens
11. 17:57 Three scenarios: passerby report, text from a trapped victim, single call smoke report
12. 23:27 Door control and finding victims: the 3,000 rescues data
13. 26:21 Isolation and multiplayer crew roles
14. 28:34 The first full-scale rollout
15. 29:42 Turning people away by the end of week one
16. 32:58 Little skill gap between veterans and new firefighters
17. 35:18 Cost-benefit and a small training office
18. 37:35 What's next: more environments, command skills, lithium-ion and hazmat
19. 40:11 Words to live by: don't be afraid to try something different

Questions answered in this episode

What problems was San Diego Fire trying to solve by using VR training?

Captain J Harris says that taking companies out of service for training means travel time away from their community, the cost of large-scale training facilities, the risk of injury during physical training, and exposure to forever chemicals in turnout gear that may raise cancer risk. VR was brought in as an alternative training method to complement existing programs.

Hear it at 1:37

What does a no fault learning environment mean in fire training?

Captain J Harris explains that traditional training often carried a testing mindset. A no fault environment means coaching people to what right looks like and focusing on successes rather than dwelling on mistakes, which helped people buy in faster and made learning more open.

Hear it at 4:21

How did San Diego Fire design the VR scenarios?

Captain J Harris says they looked at 3,000 rescues to find what made them successful, then looked at their own crew positions and what tasks each role needs to perform. They created appropriate scenarios without extra distractions, tying those benchmarks to a standard two-story house with a basement that firefighters would find anywhere in the country.

Hear it at 6:01

How many firefighters did San Diego train in the first rollout and how long did it take?

Captain J Harris says they trained a little over 300 firefighters in three and a half weeks during their initial rollout in the fall. By the end of the first week they were almost turning people away because they could not fit any more on the schedule.

Hear it at 29:47

How did veteran firefighters react to the VR training?

Captain J Harris says veteran firefighters wished they had been able to do this sooner, and their feedback to newer firefighters was that this is what it looks like. He says this shows how well the environments were built as a true representation of their experience.

Hear it at 32:24

Transcript

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

[0:02] Capt. J Harris: They came in and they saw that this was an environment that we designed for their success. And some of the more veteran, more experienced firefighters, their reaction was, I wish I would have done or known this or been able to do this sooner. And their feedback to the newer firefighters, that's kind of what it looks like. That just goes to how well the environments were built. It was a true representation of their experience.

[0:35] Kevin Sofen: The fire service has always been a hands-on profession. [inaudible 0:37] What crews are experiencing and what this could mean for the fire departments all around the country [inaudible 1:18]

[1:37] Capt. J Harris: Every time you take a company out of service, they have travel time to a location, they have travel time to and from, so that takes them away from their community. There is the cost of doing large-scale training events, whether it is the facilities, the building that you have to either acquire or use. There is the injury potential. Any time you are doing a physical activity such as firefighting, even in a training scenario, there is a risk of injury to personnel and finally, and this is an order of importance, there have been links to some forever chemicals that are in the turnout gear that we wear that the more that someone is exposed to that, whether it's in training scenario or actual of firefighting that could raise their risk of some types of cancers. The research on that is still ongoing, But those are the factors that we were considering when we decided to bring an alternative training delivery method in to complement our existing.

[2:45] Kevin Sofen: You said the word alternative and complement. I like those words, but as you started to pitch this internally, what was the reaction? I know there was that age-old adage in the fire service, 100 years of tradition unimpeded by progress, and it's not always true, but still there's a way of how the fire service does stuff. Was there skepticism and how did you work through any sort of positive or negative reaction when you

[3:11] Capt. J Harris: So anytime you're bringing in something different, something new, a technology, especially into the fire service, which is by the most part a manual profession, you're going to have some skepticism. So a lot of the ways that we worked through that we're really narrowing the focus on what we were doing, creating a very strong pilot program, really working with whether it was the instructors or that we're gonna be presenting or the way we laid out the training itself to really make it a no fault learning environment with clear benchmarks for the individuals and the company. So by doing that, we removed the hesitancy of the technology for the most part removed the hesitancy of the technology and showed them how this was going to apply to what they were doing and they could take this and apply this at the individual level, at crew level and then beyond. So a lot of that was just carefully laying out what we were doing and having a clear in state of what the crews were going to get out.

[4:18] Kevin Sofen: What does a no fault learning environment mean?

[4:21] Capt. J Harris: So in a lot of our past training And I'll go back to 30 years when I first got into the fire service. A lot of training evolutions, especially company level or individual, we adapted the same mindset that we did from almost a testing environment. When you first come into the fire service. there's obviously some standards that you have to meet. So that kind of training environment sometimes would bleed into our ongoing training. So by really making that environment something that, hey, we're going to show you or coach you to. what right looks like and you're going to have successes and not dwell on any mistakes that you might be making in the course of the course of the course of the course of the course, it really got people to buy into it a lot faster and make it more of an open learning environment for everyone involved.

[5:22] Kevin Sofen: So you mentioned earlier, and I want to dive into this, where it's sort of this evolution of reality going from what people were buying for their kids at Christmas as like a toy when it first came out to like truly being a tool. And to being a tool, it needs to be aligned with curriculum that is followed and structured and has really meaningful learning outcomes. But within those outcomes, there's these different benchmarks. Talk me through that evolution of, in your perspective, VR, going from a toy to a tool, and really how it's, like, really aligning with actual curriculum and benchmarks within your training program.

[6:01] Capt. J Harris: So not being a gamer myself, I had very little experience with VR in the gaming realm. However, when I started looking at it as a tool that could immersively put people into a situation that they might come into, I started to see the value of that. So at that point, we started to ask the question, what do we need to do? And a very easy thing for us to follow. Let's go and look at 3000 rescues. So that we use that as kind of our benchmark document, and we looked at what made those rescues successful. Now that we- figured out what commonalities made those rescues successful, we started looking at our own riding positions, our own crew dynamics, company officer, an engineer, driver operator, some departments call it, and the two firefighter positions, and what benchmarks or what tasks those individuals need to perform to make that rescue happen and what is the crew need to perform to make that rescue happen. So, once we were able to do that, then it was just a matter of creating an appropriate scenario without some of the extra distractions that we can remove, especially early in the in the training process, and tie those things together. So that's how we, and then obviously we have our own internal S

[8:03] Kevin Sofen: earlier of no fault learning, and then really being able to understand what right looks like, especially as you mentioned within the 3,000 rescue data, there's a key part of it is that targeted searching. And when you have very limited time and you've kind of got your one or two moments to the highest potential to make a rescue, you want to sort of have that baked in muscle memory of like making the best decision possible. It might not be 100% right decision, but it is the best decision with the information you have based on your training. I'd love to kind of hear you expand upon that within the 3,000 rescue data, and how you're training to create the best operators for targeted searching with that limited window to make it count. How is VR now helping create those better opportunities to know what right looks like?

[8:57] Capt. J Harris: So the way we did it was in two ways. we had a very, I don't want to say simple scenario, because no fire is really simple, but we had a very standard scenario. We had a two-story house with a walkout basement style of house that you're going to find anywhere with it in the country. So that was pretty standard. We had a fire location that would move depending on the scenario, but the principles of the fire remain the same. The principles of the fire is going to grow if water is not put on it and it's going to grow even faster if you don't if it's provided oxygen so opening doors ventilation controlling openings things of that nature. So that set the stage for what you have now as far as benchmarks or objectives that the crews were looking for, is what were the commonalities that were done on successful rescues and How can we do this? How can we split the work load as appropriate within our SOPs and our standard procedures and maintaining a cohesive crew? How can we split that workload to make sure those time sensitive benchmarks happen? So that was how we took it from that initial problem to now we're digesting it to, hey, what can we do? that are targeted searches. Now, given what you see when you arrive to that scene, building fire conditions, those initial steps that each crew member is going to perform, now they're looking at that fire scenario from if they got information ahead or during dispatch or by bystander within VR, they got that information, they're going to best be able to break that building down and that fire scenario down by where are my high percentage areas to search or to target. For example, and I don't have the data straight in front of me, but in a three-story or a two-story building with a basement, I believe it was 65 percent of victims are located on the first floor. So that's a high target search for them. depending on daytime or nighttime, the bedroom or adjacent to bedroom hallway locations are a high percentage search area. I believe that's in the 30-ish percent. So, if bedrooms are threatened, that's a high percentage search area. And the list goes on and on. So you're almost providing them with a shutdown of, I have a limited amount of time, both as an individual and a crew to get certain tasks done, and I need to target an area of this building, where should I go? Where do I get my most bang for my buck initially?

[11:58] Kevin Sofen: And one thing that I've learned a lot talking with Evan and Drew, and some other virtual reality subject matter experts, is that evolution from just watching PowerPoints and being talked at to this now is, training is lived, not lectured. How do you feel like you're actually now better accomplishing some of the training outcomes that you're trying to accomplish?.

[12:35] Capt. J Harris: So with VR in particular, I believe in that statement, 100 it's live not lectured. when you look at our workforce, just generally speaking, fire service, emergency services, generally speaking, the people who gravitate towards those occupations are typically not learners in the lecture environment, generally learners in the doer environment and environment. So first of all, understanding our students, our adult workforce who needs to learn. With that being said, now, the lived experience with VR, gives us a really unique opportunity to have the lived experience for the individual and a shared experience for the crew to participate that experience. They are communicating with other people. They are making decisions and As the VR instructor, I'm also able to live that experience with them, whether it's as an instructor following them along, as another crew member, as a instructor, I can see exactly what they see, I can see exactly what they do. I'll give you one small example we talked about earlier, one of the most important things that them out of oxygen that fire gets. How do you do most simple way close the door you know keeping doors closed and when you're searching or about to search or you go in to make a search closing that door so those are those are great things that individual who's doing that as they are crawling along in the vr world they'll go by a doorway the instructor right there seeing through their eyes can say hey Pause. Look to the right. Do you see that door? Let's close that. They closed that door. Hey, did you see that? I want you to stop. I want you to look up right now. You see that fire rolling above you? We can't do this. Let's go backwards. Okay, close that door. So they're getting those individual experiences viewed. And then, at the crew level, working through those experiences together. So they're getting that shared crew experience of a successful rescue, which most firefighters, no matter how busy or how large your agency might be, are not getting frequent shared crew experiences.

[15:16] Kevin Sofen: I think that's actually a term I hadn't heard before in this context but it couldn't be more spot on, but the shared experiences and the fire service is such a brother and sisterhood and from top to bottom, but particularly training and you mentioned earlier, just the cost and time of going to training academies, you just don't get to do that often. I mean you get to do it a couple times a year if you're lucky, but that shared experiences and kind of why it's so important in allowing your other firefighters and brothers and sisters to be your sort of collaborative teachers. Why is that so important? Why is it so important to be able to learn from each other? And again, with VR being this kind of enabler of the shared experiences, why is it so important to allow the fire service to help each other teach each other? [inaudible 16:03]

[16:32] Capt. J Harris: those experiences and bring them back to peer training. So we're discussing whether it was at a kitchen table or later on we're replicating a evolution or drill. Your training experience if done correctly by whether it's your training division or by a captain, engineer, firefighter, what they might be that shares it in that peer environment. That's where that learning, , truly takes place. So that's where they have that time to digest that's where people are going to be more vulnerable to share. Hey, I learned this I wanted I wanted to do this, I'd like to do this. You take that what we're able to do in VR, and now I have instead of having, let's just say 10 people on duty at any given time that have live rescue experience. I've now injected 20 crews across that shift who've had a shared rescue experience in VR. That information

[17:43] Kevin Sofen: So I want to get a little bit more granular into some of the specific scenarios that you've built and kind of- how that is unfolding within your department. So I progression about, again, a firefighter puts on the headset and this passer report, what does that look like? If you could sort of figuratively paint a picture of that first one, what's happening and what are they seeing and how are you, and from your training, like you being a trainer perspective. And sorry, that was like 14 questions in one, but go.

[18:36] Capt. J Harris: I'll try to start at the beginning and please redirect me or get me back on track fight if you drift too much. The firefighter passerby report. Look, I'll just start by saying all of the scenarios, we use the same building. And people say, oh, well, why didn't you change the building? That's not necessary. When we start talking about training, just in general, you don't go to a different drill tower every time you go drill. So the location that tower or that building is not as important. So the passerby what is a firefighter who is or a crew that is responding to a structure fire called by passerby when it is somewhere where complacency can set in oh it's the passerby this person didn't even bother to stop it's nothing when they arrive at scene to that scenario there's really nothing showing. There's no visible smoke from the front benchmarks for a company officer. is that 360 walk around the building and an updated reporting conditions. Well, in this scenario, they find a working fire in the basement off the back of the structure. Completely changes the scenario at that moment. So it allows that communication from that first name company officer back to their crew. Okay, now we need to decide on an entry point. where's the highest likelihood of finding those victims with no information, knowing the fire is in the basement level. So that's how that scenario, and one example how following the benchmarks, this one particularly on the company officer really sets the tone for the next actions and gets them to move forward.

[20:49] Kevin Sofen: I like that because you mentioned too, just like the same building, and of course, you could probably build out six more buildings and maybe over time you will, but I know there's cost to that, and it's maybe not the most important thing. What's really important is you having the ability to, you're not training on everything. You're training on a couple key things like the communication and the thought process behind everything. Would you say that's correct?

[21:13] Capt. J Harris: I mean, again, you can't do everything in the VR headset. I mean, you're just trying to train on specific things.

[21:16] Kevin Sofen: So yeah, and I think also what that is, the sandbox environment. Is that kind of how you've leaned in here where you kind of have the same, you had the same foundation and you were able to kind of customize it on your level to create these other three scenarios total?

[21:33] Capt. J Harris: So yes, and I'll kind of elaborate on that. So we did a lot to actually strip down what they needed to do. Again, keep it in mind, this isn't a new technology, these are new things. We didn't want them to get bogged down or focus on things that we will add later. For example, actually extinguishing the fire, some of the command features that are going to be available, the use of tools. So we did not have them doing the forcible entry or things like that. So really the focus was on communication, crew accountability and controlling doors was really where our focus was heavy into those benchmarks at the individual level and at the crew.

[22:17] Kevin Sofen: So then the other scenarios that you got currently you mentioned the passerby report but also a text from a trapped victim and a single call smoke report. Can you just paint the picture on those and what the kind

[22:37] Capt. J Harris: So, the text message gave them some limited information. If they listened to the report, they had a good idea there were three victims and their approximate locations. So this is a very good, hey, I know where these people are probably at and I can go straight to targeting those areas of the building. In that scenario, more specifically, we delved into some of the skills that we really want our firefighters to do. Two of them, they're critically important skills, go back to that thousand or three thousand rescues, where how a victim is located, and then part of the rescue, three thousand rescues, and also part of FSRI's fire dynamics, is the importance of door control or closing a door to basically make a lifeboat or isolate in the fire. So one of those victims you, it was all three victims were on the second floor. So one victim you entered a bedroom and if you were the 3,000 rescues if you look at how the victim was found, over 50% were found using your eyes. Not a thermal imager, not sweeping and feeling them, but visually seeing the victim. If you were standing at that doorway, your head is above the smoke level, and you can really not see into that room well. If you crouch down, you can see into the room well but you can't penetrate through the smoke. If you sweep that room with a tick, you can see pretty well the layout of the room however the victim is underneath the bed so even sweeping with the tick you would catch about this much of the victim's foot if i sweep with my flashlight i can fully see a victim reaching towards me so that's that portion of so you're really focusing in on how are you locating that victim. So it's ingraining into their minds, hey, I should be using my flashlight and I should be using my tick three different methods of finding a victim in that scenario. Not to mention, obviously, physically feeling with hands. It's a progression ultimately that you're kind of ingraining into their all three of them are tools for you to have as an operator and you just wanna make sure that when you're in that moment that you kinda go through that progression to give yourself the best chance of finding the victim. And then on the other side of the same scenario, there's really, and this is an arc that has been made in the fire service since my introduction to the fire service and my first training is to rescue a victim. We would open the door, we would get in as quickly found the victim as soon as we found the victim we would start dragging them to the front door or to whatever entry point that there was. So in this scenario same scenario I'm sorry but this victim as soon as you get to the victim the fire is in a bedroom just a few feet beyond them. So what we were teaching or the warning point or the benchmark was isolation. So going past the victim, closing the door allows you and the victim to escape the environment. And there's also an alternative exit just to your side. Then you can go back to the front door, or you can go to that alternative exit. The two firefighter positions, if you recall the benchmarks, one is the rescue firefighter first-hands on the victim. The other is the anchor firefighter and their responsibility or one of their benchmarks is always looking for those alternative . So if they did their benchmarks and you did if the two of us were working together that you were the rescue firefighter and I was your anchor firefighter both of us have the responsibility of closing that door or verbalizing hey I found we found a victim let's get this door closed. If you We were the anchor firefighter, hey, I've already looked for alternative to get this victim out.

[27:24] Kevin Sofen: And maybe we overlooked this earlier, but so this is multiple firefighters fire fighters in the same scene at the same time within a multiplayer scenario?

[27:32] Capt. J Harris: Correct. So all of these, we did it all as a multiplayer. So it was a company of four people. That's our standard staffing for all of our engines and truck companies. And our scenario that we created we created was The first in, or the truck company with no extinguishment capability was arriving first and a battalion chief immediately followed.. What's the reason for that? Company officer to first come at scene has command responsibility until they are they are relieved. So again, just like the tools for the forceful entry or extinguishment, we remove that from an element they had to do so they could be part of a true four person rescue team.

[28:15] Kevin Sofen: That's great. And as you now have started to deploy this at scale for how long has it been in effect now for? A year, two years, something like that?

[28:25] Capt. J Harris: So we originally received the VR training kit about a year and a half ago, just a little actually close to two years ago now. We did our first full-scale training event in the fall of last year. We were doing, before that, we spent a lot of time with the team, Evan and his team, developing the scenarios, making sure it was right, getting the entry into the game right, making sure that we had a good learning environment. So they created a fire station apparatus floor, which is a very comfortable place. I mean, I can't tell you how many hours of training, whether it was sitting on the, having a conversation or pulling a hose line or dragging or doing something that firefighters across the country spend an apparatus floors, doing some type of training. So that's a very comfortable environment for us. So that, so that was developed as practice environment. So all that time, almost a year before we got to the point within our organization, comfortable doing it at a scale.

[29:33] Kevin Sofen: So now that it's at scale for ever since the fall, what were the crew's initial experiences, and did anything surprise you in the first couple months of true adoption?

[29:47] Capt. J Harris: So of course you come in and you have the initial hesitancies, but then when they came in and they saw that this was an environment that we designed for their success. That was a big thing for myself and the instructors that were rolling this out. Hey, above all else, we want the person who puts this headset on to have a, have a good experience of doing something. We said, they're trying, they're trying, they're being a little bit vulnerable in getting outside of their comfort zone. So We had crews who came just ready to go. They were excited to be there. We usually had to tell them, your time is over, it's time for you to leave so that you can get back to your area and we can rotate the next crew in, so in the three and a half weeks of our initial rollout, we had a little over 300 firefighters trained, I believe. by the end of the first week, we were almost turning people away because we couldn't fit anymore on the schedule. We compressed the schedule as much as possible, and people would ask, hey, when's the next time? Hey, when's the next time we're going to be able to do this? What are we doing next? Those are good problems to have with anything I roll out.

[31:14] Kevin Sofen: So have you, is there any data that you're capturing from these sessions and any trends or skill gaps that you've seen from rolling out this training?

[31:24] Capt. J Harris: So we didn't capture any formal data, VR does have the ability to do so, but we're really focusing on just the learning portion. We really want people to get more comfortable with that. Once we get to that portion, then we'll explore the possibility of some more [inaudible 31:43] tracking data, but we do definitely have a very robust after-action review that we put together as instructors that I presented to our training management.

[32:04] Kevin Sofen: And with this first 300 firefighters or so, was there any difference between a veteran crew or a new firefighter? Any sort of, was it kind of universal positive experience or did you see any difference between some of the younger and more experienced firefighters?

[32:24] Capt. J Harris: is very interesting. So some of the more veteran, more experienced firefighters, their reaction was that, I wish I would have done or known this or been able to do this sooner and their feedback to the newer firefighters as that's kind of what it looks like. That's what you're going to see. So it was that just goes to how well the environments were built that it was a true representation of their experience or experiences that they had a skill there was negligible difference between whether someone was you know let's just say a few years from retirement or a couple years in or just a newer younger person there was really a large skill gap and as far as using the technology and the environment the training environment within the training environment that fire station environment, we were able to address that right away. So they spent a lot of time in that early environment to really be comfortable with using it, being comfortable with moving around with the environment, with being comfortable with the things they were going to be asked to do, to, whether it was to use a radio, use a flashlight, use a thermal imager, move, crawl, all those things. So they before they even moved into one of the scenario environments, they were We're already comfortable with that.

[33:51] Kevin Sofen: And I mean, I'm so impressed with how far you've you've come in 18 months and obviously now kind of scaling it. How often are you doing VR training sessions now with your team? Is it a daily basis, weekly basis? You know, what's the cadence look like?

[34:07] Capt. J Harris: So outside of the formal week, we call them fundamentals training. So we have two, we have two forms of large scale training. We have our in-service training, everyone from the deputy chief down has to go to. Those are more general. Then we have our fundamentals training, which this lives under within the same training office within my office. So that event we're doing, we're planning on doing it at least once a year as a large scale event, but any prop that we have is always available for our crews. So any battalion chief can schedule a VR training session for crews within their battalions or anything of that nature. So we're doing those fairly frequently. I would say at least once or twice a month. [inaudible 34:55]

[35:11] Kevin Sofen: is awesome. And it gets me thinking about other departments that could learn from some of the battle scars that you've had and just now some of the learnings that you've talked about. I could, I've heard other departments say, hey, you know, VR, it's a game or, you know, that sounds great for San Diego, but we don't have a Captain Harris that's just dedicated to this. I mean, I know many departments do have training officers. So what would you say other smaller, medium or larger departments that are exploring VR and maybe had to approach it in somewhat of a crawl, walk, run fashion as you have.

[35:48] Capt. J Harris: There's a lot of challenges when you're doing a new program. Obviously funding is a major concern. But when you start pulling back a lot of layers, when we started looking at it for us, the funding cost benefit ratio and the actual cost of that was much lower than some of the other training platforms that we were using and it was a good sum. So overall, we enjoyed a pretty as scaling or a dedicated person. While this was a project that was handled in my office, I don't have a large training staff. As a matter of fact, my office has a total staff of one plus an admin aid within the larger training office. So a lot of the development of this , was handled, was done by instructors. You know, our instructors who were regular on-duty fire captains who we worked together, we met, we helped develop this, whether it was going to their station, trying this out, teams, they tried it with their crews, we made these adjustments. So we did a lot of this on the in-service-based side rather than this is an add-on project or expense. And I think that allowed it to grow organically and really, we were able to put a good footprint on it from a lot of different perspectives. [inaudible 37:19]

[37:43] Kevin Sofen: when you first started thinking about it. But what's next? What do you see for the next remaining remainder of this calendar year? What do you see for the next 12 to 24 months in regards to how you want to continue to integrate this tech, build and create alternative scenarios, environments, things like that, and skill training stuff. What's on your mind?

[38:05] Capt. J Harris: So the training that we're scheduling or tentatively scheduled for the fall. It's going to be an expansion of some of the training that we've already done and we're brought online at least one, possibly two more environments that will have their own set of problems and benchmarks and skills that we're going to try to achieve. Still probably 90% focused on the rescue side. Outside of this, we see this as a platform to get to really start refining or working on some of their command skills that they anywhere near a lithium ion battery that is about to discharge or anywhere near a chemical or hazardous materials exposure or anything like that. But we can give you those experiences in virtual reality. So that you have the skills necessary to safely respond to those. So those beyond the November iteration, I see that as where this goes is being able to give you, again, that experience, whether it's an individual experience or a crew experience of a hazardous situation that we want you to safely respond to.

[39:42] Kevin Sofen: It's awesome. Well, I'm sure excited to hear about the expansion at the end of this fall and some of the larger events and these other scenarios you keep tinkering with. And I didn't necessarily prep you with this final question, but kind of just with you as a captain in the fire human. Is there any quote that you live by, words of wisdom that kind of drive you within your professional or personal career, a quote or was words of wisdom that you could leave us with here today?

[40:08] Capt. J Harris: So many things come to mind but I think for me and especially this last year I've been really done great things. The fire service has accomplished amazing things over its years and tradition should not be thrown out or discounted. But if we're not constantly pushing ourselves or pushing what we can do or can learn, whether it's internally, from other industries, from other leaders, then we're not doing everything we can to Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to try something different, to make mistakes, to fail, to say, how can we do this better. And if we're doing that in pursuit of a better suit to our customers, our citizens or to each other, at the end of the day

[41:20] Kevin Sofen: [inaudible] Reality and San Diego Fire Department and just how you're working with Expert VR. It's been a pleasure and really appreciate the leadership you've shown and taken to continue to evolve the fire service to embrace new tech and only