Code Red: Mobile - A mobile scenario based training exercise for CFA firefighters - Brian Quinn

CODE RED: MOBILE

A mobile scenario based training exercise for CFA

firefighters.Presented by Brian Quinn

CODE RED: MOBILE

• The author is a member of Newham Rural Fire Brigade and a PhD candidate at RMIT University, Melbourne.

• CODE RED: MOBILE is the title of a training exercise at the Hanging Rock Reserve in Central Victoria undertaken by members of the Mt Macedon Group of Brigades.

• CODE RED: MOBILE is also a mobile experiment to evaluate visualisation treatments as well as the overall success of the training exercise.

Bushfires

Newham and Hanging Rock

PhD projectResearch Questions:

• Which theories of game and game design, psychology, spatial cognition, navigation, decision making and learning are most suitable for developing design principles for a time sensitive decision making scenario based game using visualisations on computer and mobile devices?

• What are the design principles for visualisations that best support decision making under stressful conditions?

So lets do it. First I need a fire. as Fireapper might as well use one I worked on at ICC called the Rogers Drive Fire, Kyneton Jan 2012.

Cost of Bushfires in Australia 1967-1999

Number of Houses Destroyed 1939-2006

Costs of Black Saturday, Victoria 2009From: Estimating the net cost of the 2009 Black Saturday Fires to the affected regions

Catherine Stephenson, Research Officer, Centre for Risk and Community Safety, RMIT University and Bushfire CRC, John Handmer, Director, Centre for Risk and Community Safety, and Aimee Haywood, Department of Sustainability

and Environment, Victoria

Improving our response to bushfire management.

• We need better ways to inform firefighters and the community.

• Can we exploit some of the technology that the community are familiar with- like mobile devices?

• Mobile visualisations at a location familiar to participants may provide training with more impact.

The database for Webpark linked locations to multimedia content classified by location and by ontological relationship to other content. Edwardes et al (2005).

Dias (2007) studied visitor use of WebPark. The users who had the location based services on a mobile device scored best on location based recall ( p 89).

Admiraal et al (2009) reported that “…mobile games... are excellent ways to combine situated, active and constructive learning with fun” (p 302). 216 students played the game.

Brown et al, 2010

Brown et al, 2010 summarise that mobile devices can reduce cognitive load. However too much support leads to a lack of learning and personal cognitive maps are not then constructed by the participant. A game based approach may lead to the development of personal cognitive maps.

Why Hanging Rock?

Hanging Rock is in Newham Rural Fire Brigade’s area.

Newham RFB

Just before Ash Wednesday Disaster 1983

Technical assistance for the Firefighter.

• Fire Behaviour Analysts predict fires and their impact, particularly using Phoenix RapidFire.

• CFA and DSE Fire Mappers use in house mapping products as well as Arcmap.

• The State Control Centre in Melbourne assists local Incident Control Centres. At high levels of alert on a day of Extreme Fire Danger for the State all centres are fully staffed.

• Aircraft can be called upon to take Infra Red aerial images to find hot spots and fire fronts.

• Ground Observers can be tasked to report on the fire.

Predicting the course of a firePhoenix Rapid Fire created by Dr Kevin Tolhurst, Derek Chong and Dr Tom Duff

University of Melbourne

Phoenix Rapidfire prediction for a location near Hanging Rock

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

The Applications and Devices

• GPS tracking using Trimble Juno SB

• Visualisations created with Sandbox2 editor included with Crysis Wars game (crytek.com)

• Maps created from Spatial Vision’s VICMAP BOOK, Central Region which is used by Country Fire Fighters and Incident Control Centres for base maps, paper and electronic.

• Visualisations viewed in 7scenes (free version) of mobile game framework (7scenes.com) on iPad New.

The Making of CODE RED: MOBILE

• Crysis Wars (crytek.com) provides a 3D scene editor which produces good quality 3D scenes. Real terrain height maps can be used to create the scene’s terrain. Models can be imported from 3DS Max and other 3D graphics editors.

• 7Scenes (7scenes.com) is a location based game editor. Free to use for sight- seeing genre.

Overview of Hanging Rock Fire

Q u ic k T ime ™ a n d a d e c o mp re s s o ra re n e e d e d to s e e th is p ic tu re .



7Scenes: editor

Making the Visualisations in Sandbox2

• Sandbox2 has a collection of flames, smoke, explosions and clouds, some of which can be affected by a global wind.

• It also has a collection of buildings, vehicles, fences which can be edited and used in a scene.

• Vegetation collection includes grass and tree types that can be affected by the global wind.

Collecting images

The Mt Beckworth Fire

The Mt Beckworth Fire

Ground fire

Newham Brigade Burn Off

Grass fire

The Racecourse Lake: an iconic feature for finding location

The Sandbox2 version above

Rock and Bush textures and general look

Ember attack, Canberra 2003Photo: Pat Scala, Fairfax Syndication. Used with permission.

Ember Storm in Sandbox2

Pyroculonimbus Left: Photo: Monica Minford, Dreamstime.com. Used with

permission. Right: Sandbox2 version

Editing Flames and Smoke



AVS4YOU for editing movies

7scenes track and participant’s log in top right hand console

Bushfire Events

• Car crashes into tree on Colwells Lane• After about 20 minutes the fire spreads South

driven by the northerly winds.• Fire reaches the east side of the lake after about 3

minutes.• Reaches south of lake after 4 minutes.• Windchange occurs, the eastern flank becomes

the new fire front, heading eastwards.

Car Crash at Point of Origin- the POO



Elliptically shaped fire near origin



Part of a slide show in 7scenes featuring the annotated Spatial Vision

map of the Hanging Rock Bushfire

Fire reaches the side of the lake. Hanging Rock and Race Callers Tower

assist in locating fire movie



View from west side of the fire



Slideshow features extent of the fire following the wind change.

Movie with static annotated pictures, explaining the wind change



Firefighter taking part in CODE RED: MOBILE

Data for Analysis

• How many houses participants correctly decided would burn down.

• Selection of correct order of events in a debrief task.

• Map of their GPS tracks.

Rescuing GPS tracks

Xlsx of tracks ready for ArcMap 10 and Geotime 5.3

GPS Tracks (all sessions) on Cricket Oval for CODE RED: MOBILE

Geotime 5.3: Tracks, Trails and Active Zones

More Active Zones

Geotime5.3: locating participants as they set off after reading task marker

information

Locating errors in half tracks

Player tracks in Unreal Tournamentunknown source

Heatmap of player activity in Halo Gamehttp://halowiki.net/p/File:Mesh_guardian_heatmap.jpg

Kernel Density Heatmap of CODE RED: MOBILE

in ArcMap 10

Nearest Neighbour Heatmap of CODE RED: MOBILE in ArcMap 10

Searching for the House Markers visualisaed with Geotime 5.3

(oculus.com)



Unveiling the outliers with Active Site Finder



PRELIMINARY RESULTS

• Static Visualisations are as useful as Movies.

• With a pass mark of 70% not enough of the firefighters passed.

• Complex to organise.

• Ten at a time is probably optimum.

In Conclusion

• Useful dynamic and static geovisualisations of bushfires can be made with a COTS game editor.

• Location based scenario is a viable option for field training for firefighters and likely other emergency services.

• GPS and logs of participant behaviour in location based application can provide rich source of data about individual and group performance as well as the utility of the application.

• ArcMap 10 plus Geotime 5.3 are useful tools for analysing behaviours in a mobile location based exercise.

Acknowledgements

• Apple University Consortium, Australia.• CFA, Region 2• Mt Macedon CFA Group: Martin Leitch, Group

Training Officer• Newham RFB: Brigitte Kny Training Officer• RMIT University: Prof W. Cartwright, Monique Elsley

and Chris Marmo, SMGS• Macedon Ranges Shire• Hanging Rock Reserve Staff• Judy and James Quinn

Newham Firefighters return to Fire Station

email: [email protected]

Technology

Code Red: Mobile - A mobile scenario based training exercise for CFA firefighters - Brian Quinn