Firefighters are the role-model of modern heroes: a brave life safer in emergency situations. Citizens trust them even more as any other profession. This positive image is tested each
day and sometimes to the limit. Firefighters are Allrounders. They not only deal with fire, but also with hazardous substances, new technologies, such as e-cars, as well as medical
emergency cases.
FIGHTARs SAVES LIVES: A firefighter is a rescuer, of persons and goods, and a team-player. A wrong or slow response can set human lives on risk.
To respond and react to emergencies accordingly, in a timely and a professional manner, firefighters need to be up to date. This helps them to catch up with the increased
methodological, strategical and technical demands of modern firefighting. Technological developments allow firefighters to immerse in more realistic training environments, by using
visual aids, such as Augmented Reality or Smart glasses. This provides guidance and training for developing reasonable response strategies for several emergency situations.
Neither the technological nor the pedagogical benefits of immersive technologies have been tested so far, for firefighters training in the EU. The application of these technologies, in a
training environment, creates an immersive work or rescue environment. It responds to tendencies for a modern training, in the context of a professional training 4.0 / VET 4.0.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
FIGHTARs aims to prioritise specific skills/competences for an immersive rescue environment in firefighters training, by providing guidance concerning pedagogical suitable options
(didactic added value) as well as by developing, testing, evaluating and transferring several digital enriched training scenarios (“training toolkit”). This helps to create scenario specific
trainings for firefighters in the piloting EU countries.
TARGET GROUP
The focus is on training of future and existing firefighters, in a rather school-based/classroom setting. FIGHTARs creates serval training schemes, according to legal or frequent needs,
by enriching existing training offers. Cases from previous years, in the partner countries show a high demand, when dealing with technical accidents (CZ), car accidents (EE) fires (LT,
SK) and medical assistance (all).
The use of immersive technology, such as Augmented Reality (AR) glasses, learning and 360° video, will optimize trainings and lead to better response / rescue patterns of
firefighters, during a mission.
Further objectives are:
• to support practical learning with new technologies, taught in self learning and during cooperative sessions (70:20:10 rule)
• facilitate schools for training materials for equipment, which is too expensive or dangerous in real life
• to promote professional, social and media skills among firefighters
• to attract young persons to the firefighter’s profession
• to spark interest for a sustainable exploitation and dissemination of FIGHTARs, also after the project
PRACTICAL LEVEL NEEDS
Existing experience from firefighters training shows that learning materials exist. But knowing and applying them in the correct way is something else. To bridge that gap AR, learning
videos and 360° videos and e -learning modules can support the transfer of knowledge to professional competences. It is surprising that simple forms of a trainer guided AR use or
remote training is not piloted so far. Especially in that case, where the trainer provides in real-time, audio-visual guidance by voice and simple holograms (e.g. arrows) from his/her
computer screen to the trainee, who wears the AR glasses, is stunning. In that scenario subsequent steps, e.g. for rescuing a person from a crashed (electrical) car, can be guided and
recorded. This allows to create learning videos from a first-person perspective. The embedding of this videos in a 360° environment helps to evaluate also the situational context.
The existing experiences from using AR show, that communication and collaboration among trainees is strengthens. The social impact, which is technological induced and pedagogical
driven, supports the collaboration among firefighters as well as to the intervention commander.
The aim in FIGHTARs is to provide teaser for scenarios e.g. such as:
• Fire tactics (360° videos and AR Remote training)
• Rescuing persons from a crashed (electrical) car (AR Remote training, AR visualisation of a car)
A comprehensive, virtual training environment will combine them.
RATIONALE OF TRANSNATIONAL APPROACH
The European Added Value to the project is sizeable, and crucial for the success of the project. The similarity of challenges that specialised firefighters training centres face across
Europe, means that a European initiative like FIGHTARs, provides modern and excellent training settings to support