Through a partnership with the National Fire Academy, DAS was selected to support the training needs of the USDA Forest Service. To support one of their training needs, DAS developed a 3D wild land fire fighting training simulator. This training simulator provides a physically realistic fire propagation model based on fuel types, various environmental conditions, and the terrain topology. Trainees have the ability to request resources and build fire lines to hinder and stop the propagation of the fire, and instructors have the ability to alter the environmental conditions that in turn affect the behavior of the fire.

The training environment consists of two or more networked PCs where one PC acts as the instructor’s console and the other PCs are the student workstations.

Instructors are given complete control over the simulation environment with the ability to affect the fire propagation by changing environmental conditions such as wind speed and direction and the ability to speed up or slow down the propagation based on student experience. Students have minimal interaction with the actual simulation environment. Their actions and decision-making process indirectly effect the environment based on changes made to the environment by the instructor. For example, based on available resources the students may decide to construct a fire line beginning at the heel of the fire and proceeding up the left flank. From this request the instructor would decide when those resources arrive and then define the fire line at the instructor’s console. The students would then begin to see the results of their decision as the fire proceeds and is impeded by the constructed line and as the fire may escape around the line if improperly constructed. The entire simulation is recorded for after-action-review in the classroom.

As a follow-on task to the simulation environment DAS is developing a scenario editor application that allows the USFS define and construct the simulation world from scratch. The scenario developer begins with the heightfield definition of the terrain. Currently the format of the heightfield information can be in either the Windows BMP format or the USGS SDTS DEM format. From the heightfield information, the scenario editor constructs the terrain skin based on the user-defined postspacing. Once the terrain skin is defined, the developer can apply geo-typical textures, populate the terrain with a number of vegetation types, structures, and miscellaneous objects. Road networks and water sources (e.g. streams and ponds) can also be defined.

In addition to the creation of the terrain, the scenario developer also has the ability to define the initial environmental conditions, the resources (e.g. dozers and pumpers) that will be available to the students, how fire propagates with respect to the various fuel types, and the roles that individual student workstations will play in the scenario.

Future enhancements plan to include light scattering to simulate the effect of inversion where morning temperatures cause the smoke in the environment to pancake and fill the region. As the day progresses, the inversion breaks

and releases the smoke and gives the fire new life. Light scattering will also add the ability to alter the time of day in real-time. Other planned additions include: Addition of the audio clues such as the sound of the roaring fire and  helicopters flying by to provide water drops. The ability to import USGS DLG shape files into the scenario editor to automatically generate the location of vegetation, road networks, water sources (e.g. lakes and streams), structures, etc. A simulation log/database viewer for class pre-loading and after action review (AAR) Visual representations of various weather conditions such as rain Fire spread through the tree crown Audio tracking of voice traffic and syncing of the audio to the simulation for AAR.