System for personnel training in decision making of wildfires fighting

Abstract

Wildfires (forest, peat, steppe, etc.) fighting is a complex and often dangerous process, connected with cooperation of many organizations and crews. Thus, suppression of a wildfire is a complicated process that requires a good organization. An important role in this process plays the qualitative training of personnel engaged in fighting the fire. In the process of extinguishing the fire crew of various organizations are involved: employees of Russian Aviation Forest Protection agency Avialesoohrana, crews of the Russian Ministry of Emergencies, members of voluntary fire crews created by municipalities. In accordance with the standard issued in Russia in 2018, a new working specialty - forest firefighter - has appeared. To such specialists are put quite high demands. They should not only be able to extinguish fires, but also have the skills of firefighting tactics, search engines, rescuers, psychologists, organizers and communication specialists. Training of personnel in the techniques and tactics of combating wildfires is carried out in educational systems at various levels - from special education in the university to short-term courses for recruited employees of outside organizations. However, regardless of the educational institution level in which the training is conducted, members of firefighting crews should have basic knowledge of fire safety techniques, methods and tactics for wildfires combating. As it known, one of the currently used effective forms of personnel training and professional development is interactive computer training systems that allow individual approach to the trainees both in material mastering and testing. A separate class of training systems are computer simulators widely used in various fields. Given the dynamic nature of the wildfire spread and the need to make operational decisions, training system should include the elements of a simulator – an imitation subsystem, which helps the trainee to observe the development of fire situation on the map, make decisions and evaluate their effectiveness. In the work presented, an interactive simulation system FIREMAN, developed by the authors, is discussed. The system was designed to train the personnel on the basics of knowledge of wildfires and decision making to combat them. The structure of the system is described and an example of working system is given.