Episode 332: Make Mistakes Safely: Egi Cuijten on VR Training for High-Risk, Low-Frequency Incidents

Episode notes

Some incidents happen once in a career. A massive fire with multiple trucks, EMS, and police on scene. When it happens, crews need to be ready. Egi Cuijten of Flashgroup builds virtual reality training for exactly that gap.

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.

Recorded at Interschutz 2026 in Hannover, this conversation starts with a simple point. In virtual reality training, the most important word is training.

Egi explains how VR lets a young firefighter make mistakes safely, see how smoke and oxygen behave, and learn from a trainer's decades of experience. It does not replace live fire. It fills the space between the classroom and the burn building.

Topics covered:

Why training matters more than the virtual part

The space between classroom theory and live fire

High-risk, low-frequency incidents and multi-agency response

From PC and tablet simulation to mobile VR headsets

Passing a veteran trainer's knowledge to young firefighters

Fire dynamics in VR: smoke, temperature, and oxygen

Why a trainee sees nothing until they kneel below the smoke layer

Nozzle, extinguisher, and firearm controllers for multi-discipline training

AI characters, virtual commanders, and the next five years

Plug and train: how Flashgroup started during COVID and reached more than 20 countries

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 Interschutz mini-series intro
2. 0:41 Day four at Interschutz
3. 1:11 In VR training, the key word is training
4. 2:00 The space between classroom theory and live fire
5. 2:45 High-risk, low-frequency incidents and EV fires
6. 3:53 Large multi-agency incidents: be prepared
7. 4:11 Egi's background in simulation
8. 4:50 Trainer and student: passing on decades of knowledge
9. 7:07 Making mistakes safely: oxygen, fire spread, and smoke
10. 13:02 VR doesn't replace live fire: multi-discipline training
11. 13:43 The next five years: talking to a virtual commander
12. 16:37 How COVID sparked an accessible, plug-and-train product
13. 19:02 Be committed, be honest

Questions answered in this episode

What does virtual reality training mean for Flash Group?

Egi Cuijten says the most important part of the phrase is training, not the virtual part. VR is a technology that helps first responders improve their work by filling the gap between theoretical training and practical training with actual fire, especially for communication and coordination.

Hear it at 1:09

What are high-risk, low-frequency incidents and why use VR for them?

Egi Cuijten explains these are events that don't happen often, like an insanely large fire involving multiple trucks, ambulance, and police, but when they do happen you want to be prepared. VR gives you a wide span of availability to train for situations you may rarely face in real life.

Hear it at 2:58

How does VR training help students make mistakes safely?

A trainer can have young firefighters go into the virtual world and make their own mistakes, then explain afterward what happened. For example, if you open a door and oxygen rushes in, the trainer can show how the fire starts spreading and the dynamics change, all without real danger.

Hear it at 5:41

What fire science dynamics does Flash Group simulate in VR?

Egi Cuijten says they simulate how smoke, temperature, and oxygen control a fire. If water is applied it can create steam, or if someone opens a door elsewhere in the house oxygen flows in. The simulation shows smoke layer behavior so trainees understand why they need to kneel down to see in a smoke-filled room.

Hear it at 8:28

What tools does Flash Group include in their VR training?

The base product includes a fire extinguisher, a hose nozzle, and a firearm. Egi Cuijten says these represent tools first responders carry and help with the multidisciplinary context, so firefighters, paramedics, and law enforcement can train together even though they use different equipment.

Hear it at 11:22

Transcript

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

[0:20] Kevin Sofen: All right, who am I here with today?

[0:22] Egi Cuijten: Egi, nice to see you again, Kevin.

[0:24] Kevin Sofen: Nice to see you as well.

[0:26] Egi Cuijten: Nice to see you, yeah.

[0:27] Kevin Sofen: How's your time in Hanover treating you?

[0:30] Egi Cuijten: Ah, it's been great. We're at day four, I think, right now. So we're feeling fresh, feeling good.

[0:36] Kevin Sofen: Is it day four?

[0:37] Egi Cuijten: Just getting started.

[0:38] Kevin Sofen: Oh man, just getting started.

[0:40] Egi Cuijten: Exactly, exactly. No, we're having fun. You know, Interschutz is brilliant again. Every time here, it's just for me, for our firm, I'm sure for you guys as well, it's just the best in the world. So I'm very glad to be here again, having a lot of fun.

[0:55] Kevin Sofen: We got some of your team right here.

[0:58] Egi Cuijten: Yeah.

[0:58] Kevin Sofen: Actually putting your headsets on and doing training. When you hear the word and the phrase virtual reality training, what does that actually mean? What does it mean to you?

[1:09] Egi Cuijten: What does it mean to me? Well, I think the most important part of three word sentence is training. I think in reality for me the whole virtual part is of less important. It's really about the whole training aspect. So when we're talking about firefighting or first responders in general, these people have to go out sometimes even daily to really save lives, help lives. They need to be in a safe position for themselves and others. So training is essential for them to actually do their job. When I'm thinking about this training aspects, specifically virtual reality in this context, is about how can we as a fire and rescue market help them improve their work, right? [inaudible 1:51] always the basics in the context. So for me, it's important that when I'm thinking about training, I know we have theoretical training and we have practical training, realistic training with actual fire and such. There is a lot in between, right? So you think about communication. How do I talk to my commander? How do I talk to other firefighters in my crew? If we're there with a couple of trucks and we need to do a very specific incident, maybe even with police, ambulance, etc. That's where virtual reality comes in. Because this is a technology that can really, really, really help other people as well to fully understand it.

[2:30] Kevin Sofen: It's the beauty of just improv. It's the beauty of the suits, man. Yeah, no, I like it. So the virtual reality is just a means to the end.

[2:39] Egi Cuijten: Exactly.

[2:39] Kevin Sofen: So what is virtual reality and what you've created, Flash Group, enabling firefighters to train on? And I've heard this term, high risk, low frequency, low frequency, high risk, [inaudible 2:51] some blue sky type events that happen every day to the electrical vehicle fire that doesn't necessarily happen.

[2:58] Egi Cuijten: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, but this is it again. You know, you want to make sure that you've got training tools available to prepare you for some things that can happen in an actual event. So they can be medical of nature or they can, like you're saying, like an electric vehicle, which creates toxins as well. So we need to all understand that the world is very rapidly changing with all these innovations that we get blasted with nowadays. It's, you know, things are changing so quickly. So we want to have tools that can prepare us for this. And what virtual reality does very well is it gives you a very wide span of availability. So when you're talking about high risk, low frequency, the low high risk, low frequency part is the practical part. You know, how many times will you actually go into a situation where there is an insanely large fire where you are with multiple trucks, ambulance police, the whole gang available? It doesn't happen that often. But when it happens, you want to be prepared. Right. So it's all about preparation. And this is what virtual reality, like no other, can actually bring to the table now. So, you know, I've been in the simulation industry since 2010. Back then we had PC training, tablet training, and that's great. But when virtual reality really got into fruition, you know, headsets came in, they got mobile, you didn't need computers anymore. It was just, it was more accessible, more cost efficient, all these things. That's what really made it shine, I think, you know. So we're at a point in time now, which is, I get very enthusiastic about that myself as well. You know, the technology is there. You know, we can use it, we can enable it for firefighters and first responders all around the world. That's just the impressive part.

[4:49] Kevin Sofen: And talk me through, too, I mean, you have these first responders right behind us going through it. But kind of the trainer student environment. I mean, I was in it earlier in James Mullins, you know, great virtual reality developer himself. You talked about one of the things that, you know, the last thing you do is put the wet stuff on the red stuff.

[5:11] Egi Cuijten: Oh, yeah. It's always it's all about like all the thinking that goes into how you approach for the building based on where the fire is at. You know, based on the tool that you're holding, you know, how should you consider reading the gas?

[5:26] Kevin Sofen: That's it. That's it. Talk me through kind of that trainer, the student environment in terms of how it's all about just allowing the trainer to put the student in the contextual environment to ask the right questions, to get them thinking and learning.

[5:41] Egi Cuijten: Yeah. And it's about understanding, right? And James knows all about this as well, because he understands the combination between the training aspect and the simulation aspect, and the water also. And we feel that as well. So for us, when you're talking about a trainer, a trainer is someone that has an immense amount of knowledge about subject matter, you know, and he knows what it's like in practice. And you want to bring that knowledge over to someone that doesn't have your experience, you know, and maybe will never get, you know, this is something we really need to realize. Like we have people like like like one of your colleagues, Jim Wiegel, awesome guy. How many years has he been in the firefighting industry? I don't think there will ever be someone with more knowledge. But how can we get his knowledge to young firefighters, firefighters like them themselves? You know, they just have a couple of years, a couple of years in the industry. We want to give them something so that they understand, you know, and within this kind of training, like you're saying as well how to use specific tools. It's one part, it's how to use the tool, right? So what buttons to press, how do I use a nozzle, what are the differences between the angles of the spread water itself? How to read a heat signature camera, what to do with a smoke stopper? All these things matter because they want to be able to use it quickly and properly and safely. But you need to understand why the tool is there. You know, what can you do with a specific tool that tells you as a firefighter what is happening inside the building? Because that will determine if you actually go in or not. And this provides you all the information on how to safely act. You know, let's say there is a victim inside. We have, you know, years and years and years of different kind of tactics. And it's a changing, changing method. So a trainer finally has some tool so that a young student can actually safely go into this virtual world and make their own mistakes. And the trainer can safely have them make mistakes and then later explain like, OK, but did you realize that when you open this door, a lot of oxygen went in, the fire start spreading, you see all this, you know, potential flash. So the smoke dynamics and a little bit of the if this then that type of experience where if you were opening up the hose nozzle and different types of streams controlling the smoke or putting it on the fire.

[8:15] Kevin Sofen: So talk to me a little bit that maybe this is more of the science behind some of the fire science dynamics that when you take one action, something else happens that is based on real life science.

[8:28] Egi Cuijten: That's it. Yeah, that's it. So the dynamic aspects is one of the most important things, right? because again, it's all about safety. We need to realize that if there is a fire somewhere, there are three aspects that can control the fire itself. It's things matter for the fire itself as well. And what we try to do, if we can control the smoke, if we can control the temperature, and if we can control the oxygen, and we can control the entire environment itself. So those dynamics for us, even with water as well, they are they are very, very important. If we put water somewhere, it can create steam. We cannot simulate properly yet in virtual reality what it feels like to get blasted with like 600 degrees more steam. You know, that's something you need to experience and feel. But what we can do is we can show you what happens if there is a fire somewhere, someone at another point in the house opens a door and suddenly you get approached with something you don't want to see in real life. And this is the thing. We want to create a safe environment for people to experience these dynamics. We have people in virtual reality that walk in, they put on the glass and say, I'm done. I think it doesn't work today. I think it doesn't work today. Yeah, I'm just seeing total blackness. I see some lines, but something is wrong. And we have to tell them like, maybe try try kneeling down. Yeah, you understand why you're at right now. Oh, and it's a suddenly I can see some things like they understand. OK, so this is the smoke layer. They have never ever seen how smoke moves in an actual chamber. That's that's closed off. So these kind of things bring in a lot of information.

[10:12] Kevin Sofen: That's extremely relevant for safe, firefighting procedures, enabling the learning opportunities and obtaining understanding about why something is happening or not happening.

[10:23] Egi Cuijten: Exactly. That's it. And you want to connect these these dynamics and technical approaches, all these things. You want to connect them to some kind of learning goal, right? Because you will never be able to teach someone everything in a day. It's just not how it works. But you want to create programs that really are fitted to lessons as well and really get that get that going. Yeah. So, you know, all these things, all these things need to be combined. And I think our product is, you know, a really nice example of how you can get theory in one hand, realistic training in the other. And then virtual reality really fits the gap there.

[11:03] Kevin Sofen: I see a couple of different tools that are kind of addition.

[11:07] Egi Cuijten: Oh, yeah. So for the base product, you've got the extinguisher. Yeah.

[11:11] Kevin Sofen: As I throw it on the ground here. The hose nozzle. And then also a gun. Tell me about kind of the high level of each three and sort of how they're used in training operations.

[11:22] Egi Cuijten: Exactly. for us, [inaudible 11:23] whole trainers who fight aspect is really important because we do want people. Yeah, exactly. For example, nozzle and the extinguisher and like we have a firearm here. So, well, exactly. Yeah, we can show them on camera. That's, you know, for us, again, this is this is the tool that you have available with you at all at all times. Obviously, there are many, many, many, many different things that you have in, for example, your fire truck or items that you carry with you as personal protection equipment, for example. But this is something, you know, speaks to the emotion as well, right? If you're a firefighter, this is what you like. This is what you have. So we think from a trainers who fight aspect, it's important to include as much as possible. But again, what I want to be far away from is assuming that we can make this one hundred percent realistic because that will be either, you know, too hard, too expensive or whatever. And this is something we have available everywhere. I can go outside to a fire truck hose to a nozzle I have at hand and see and try how it feels to have eight bars of water on this thing. Same applies with the extinguisher or firearms at the shooting range. So it's not about how to actually use it as well. Yeah, of course. I'm glad. I'm glad. Anytime. Lots of happy faces. That's good. We like happy faces. That's a good time. Yeah. Yeah. So [inaudible 12:49] you're asking for us, it's to provide something that that that comes close to the real thing. But it still fits within the virtual reality aspect. So it's not something you use instead of practical training. You still need to go outside. You still need to experience fire. You still need to use actual nozzles, hoses, etc. Yeah, we think it's important for them to have it. And obviously a firefighter doesn't have a firearm and a police officer doesn't have a nozzle. But for us, the multidisciplinary context, knowing that when you're out, usually there are paramedics available, law enforcement officers available or any other type of of first respond. Yeah, it's important for them to be able to work together. So that's what this is for us.

[13:36] Kevin Sofen: So you show me a couple of these different hardware in sort of. There are pieces that kind of pull that are part of the ecosystem.

[13:44] Egi Cuijten: Yeah.

[13:44] Kevin Sofen: Where do you see Flash Group in five years? Is there any sort of what other kind of software or hardware paths do you see in terms of how they continue to make the virtually out of the ecosystem? How much more powerful and meaningful?

[13:59] Egi Cuijten: Oh, exactly. Yeah, sky's the limit, I would think. Yeah. I think most important of what we've seen, especially in the past years, is that this stuff has really started to adopt. Right. Let's be honest virtual reality is not new. And again virtual reality is not what it's about for me. It's about the training aspect and being able to provide very realistic practical training to large amounts of people. So where I see the future for us as Flash Group, but I think for our industry as a whole, the simulation industry, is that we will be more adapt, more adaptable at least to this changing world. we will be able to train for incidents that we cannot do today, we can be able to train, for example, really insane industrial complex facilities stuff like that. We will be able to train for any type of of incident that we can think of, no development such as AI, like every simulation company out there is investing heavily in.

[14:57] Kevin Sofen: Flash Group AI Flash Group AI, exactly. Maybe.

[15:00] Egi Cuijten: Perhaps. But we are adopting that, you know, if we're talking about for us, communication is important, you know, being able to talk to a virtual commander or a virtual high ranking officer. That's very important.

[15:13] Kevin Sofen: Can you imagine actually adding like this kind of like 911 call things adding in the interaction of some level of interpreting what you're saying and responding in the contextual manner?

[15:25] Egi Cuijten: AI characters, someone running out of their homes shouting that they're dog or maybe even worse, God forbid that kid or someone in in the house, you know, you you actually have to talk to these people. And work to understand how you go through that situation. That's it, you know, because that's that's the stuff what what is actually important when you're your your own duty and you're answering a call. These are the things that that are very relevant for the entire incident. So when I'm thinking where do we where will we move as as Flash Group ourselves is that we will get a full total picture of what it is to, you know, manage and control and fight these incidents as a whole.

[16:08] Kevin Sofen: So two other final questions with Flash Group, you said you worked in the simulation industry at what point where you were like Flash Group needs to exist. Like we need a there's a there's an opportunity to market and I'm creating flash. Yeah, as X.

[16:23] Egi Cuijten: Yeah. Well, wow. That's a deep question, I think. And in a way as well like the great Bob Ross once said, it's all happy little accidents. Yeah, I think I think for me personally, it's been kind of like this, you know, in the obviously I've been in the in the industry for a while and I've known firefighting for for a long, long, long, long time. To, to be honest,the whole COVID period helped us in a way thinking about it because at a point in time when COVID hit the world and we were hit with all kinds of trouble, it created a moment for me and for us as a company to really think about like, okay, you know, we have this time now also some kind of time to reflect. And we figured we've been working in this industry for a while. We've doing been doing this and that, you know, a product project here, project there. But we see that this this need it's for training. It's a global need. So why is there no there were a lot of solutions on market already? But why is there no solution that really focuses on this, you know, this incident control? You know, there are tools for command and are very specific tools for extinguishing fires. [Dutch, inaudible 18:20] I wanted something that was more easily accessible, broadly accessible, and I wanted something that every firefighter could use and that every firefighter could handle. So that means that we need something which is accessible, cost efficient, you know, all these things. And we have invented this word plug and train. It's important. Hey, you power it on. And within a couple of minutes you'll be going into action with your crew. So these things, these like puzzle pieces started to come together within this COVID time. We started developing it and well, see where we're at now, you know, a couple of years later, exploring the world with Darley, for example, we're at the taboet right now. You know, with with all these amazing people we're meeting at Interschutz. It's crazy when we're speaking now Kevin, we're available in more than 20 countries. it's insane and then I am extremely proud of it obviously and my team is extremely proud of it

[18:36] Kevin Sofen: so beautiful happy little accident

[18:39] Egi Cuijten: exactly exactly

[18:40] Kevin Sofen: so that's a great way my final question for you is within your business and Flash Group and the life of Egi is there any favorite quote that you have or words of wisdom that you live by that you drive your business or run your daily life by maybe we should have used a happy little accident oh yeah I'm seeing what else you got in your brain

[19:01] Egi Cuijten: well yeah no well well this was that was the best one yeah no but I think I think for us you know it's just you know you know be committed be honest you know we are doing this for a safer environment for firefighters to me this really goes very very deep you know it's not a sales pitch for me all the rest like that's that's just bullshit for me it is really about you know bringing something to the world of first performance to make that stuff better and I think it works for everyone here for you as well I know you Kevin so I know it works for you like this but it's this commitment and this passion that's something we need to you know hold strong keep going and that's that's what brings the beauty in life for me so that's that's it

[19:47] Kevin Sofen: likewise well send them we'll keep going for sure but the good work and thanks for seeing you again today tomorrow whenever we'll cross paths again soon

[19:57] Egi Cuijten: thanks Kevin