FLAME-SIM's First Colorado Deptartment
Friday June 26, 2009
Wheat Ridge Fire Protection District (WRFD), organized in 1926 and located in the Denver-Metro area of Jefferson County, CO, joined the FLAME-SIM family in early June 2009. Wheat Ridge is a volunteer based fire protection service that currently uses a combination of pragmatic learning and hands on training in their training division. Jason Brewer who heads the department's Training Division shared his thoughts about the software; "The incorporation of new and innovative training such as FLAME-SIM, will enable our membership to serve our community in a safer, more efficient, and proficient manner". WRFD plans to use FLAME-SIM in their new state-of-the art simulation lab that is currently under construction.
The Wheat Ridge Fire Department is enthusiastic about the simulation software and excited to see the benefits their twelve seats of FLAME-SIM will bring to their training division. When asked about this new training platform, Chief Steven Gillespie offered the following: "FLAME-SIM will allow us to develop our members dynamic decision making skill sets and reinforce our operating procedures without incurring the loss of property and most importantly a single civilian/firefighter injury or fatality". FLAME-SIM is honored to be integrated into their training division and is excited to welcome WRFD to the FLAME-SIM family.
WRFD will join fire departments across the country in their use of FLAME-SIM. City of Allen Fire Department located in Allen, Texas has been using FLAME-SIM since December of 2008. They have seen first hand the benefits of the customizable simulation both for implementing procedural changes and training company officers.
City of Allen FD has used FLAME-SIM to train and test the incident command and company officer positions for six months. The fluidity of the dynamic environment offered by FLAME-SIM quickly exposes errors in communication and decision making on the fireground, allowing their Chief of Training to recognize and correct unsafe behaviors in a safe environment.
The procedural change at hand: increase interoperability. Since 1953 Allen FD has been using 'Engine X to Command' in order to open lines of communication on the fireground. Interoperability with surrounding departments required 'Engine X to Command' be changed to 'Command from Engine X'. Before FLAME-SIM, notification of the change would go out via memo and take place slowly over the following months. While training in FLAME-SIM the repetition of 'Command from Engine X' allowed officers to break from the old procedure in just two weeks and allow for smoother operation in multi-box alarms.
We are excited to see the addition of Wheat Ridge Fire Protection District to the FLAME-SIM family and the results training officers have seen in using FLAME-SIM.
For information on FLAME-SIM, contact our sales team at info@FLAME-SIM.com or call (877) FLAME01 (352-6301).