FossilMedic tells us what happened:

VIRTUAL TRAINING:
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN ‘ABBOTTVILLE’ WENT DIGITAL

In the mid 1980’s Warren Township Division Fire Chief Don Abbott helped develop the Marion County HazMat Task Force. Like other early glow-worms, much of the training was developed in-house. Chief Abbott developed a HO-scale model city capable of handling 139 different training sequences. The 12’ by 18’ diorama had complete radio and telephone capabilities, using 234 buildings and 160 vehicles. Chief Abbot needed a trailer to move the model disaster city.

Retiring in 1994, Don and his wife Bev made a living by providing haz-mat, disaster and incident management training on “Abbottville” through his Command Emergency Response Training company. The Abbottville incident management classes quickly filled up at the national and regional fire shows. As the specter of Y2K rose, Don and Bev put on multi-day 24 hour scenarios for local, state and federal agencies.

Speaking with Chief Abbott in 1999 at the Firehouse Expo, he shared his observation about the challenge of developing depth for a campaign operation. Few organizations had strong players two and three levels deep into their organization. This same issue was mentioned by Prince William County in preparing for a pandemic [ http://firegeezer.com/2007/11/13/pandemic-staffing/ ]. Don sold Abbotville to Command School TTX [ http://www.commandschool.com/aboutus.html ].

In 2002, Don accepted an opportunity to develop a more sophisticated training program in the quarters of a surplus Phoenix fire station. Hired by PFD as a project manager, Don and Bev moved into old Fire Station 30 and built the Command Training Center [ http://phoenix.gov/FIRE/ctc.html ]

I attended four hour demonstrations at the CTC in 2004 and 2007. What was impressive was the ability to deliver a dynamic incident in real-time to 10 sectors (kiosks with computers), the incident officer in a suburban and the command team in a mock-up of PFD Command Van 1. The ability to practice a standardized response to an incident by all of the players, regardless of jurisdiction, was great.

My biggest take-away from the sessions was the ability of the department to try out different command procedures in a realistic environment. Some procedures that made sense on the whiteboard were difficult to execute in a simulation. Ergonomics and task roles issues with the battalion chief’s suburban and the command van were also identified.

Abbott received the Fire Engineering Training Achievement Award in April 2006. The award announcement noted that “To date, the Command Training Center has trained more than 3,000 people. Don has also helped develop three-, five-, and six-day training packages for outside agencies and has delivered command training to members of more than 100 departments across the country. The Phoenix Center has become a national model not only for the facility itself but also for the curriculum and the training materials produced there. Each year, the facility has visitors from around the globe, and Don’s work has led to the creation of similar facilities across the nation.”

Don, working with the folks at Digital Combustion [ http://www.digitalcombustion.com/ ], has worked to deliver as much of the CTC experience as can be reduced into a single laptop. He has also shared the Phoenix experiences to help develop the next generation of virtual reality incident simulators. There are eleven large incident simulators built upon the Phoenix experience. The only public one east of the Mississippi is at the Montgomery County, Maryland, Public Safety Training Academy (PSTA).

The PSTA Command Development Center was opened April 2007. Using the latest in digital technology and presentation, it may have the largest fire and rescue tactical tabletop venue in the nation. Fellow geezer Tom Schwartz provided the NIMS city to Montgomery[ http://www.ics-toolbox.com/ ]. You may recall that the Charleston incident management training was delivered at the PSTA.

By 2018 we should have the ability to practice any incident management challenge in a safe and realistic simulation trainer. And flying cars …. And robot firefighters …

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