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Federal Lab Consortium Mid-Atlantic Region Annual
ConferenceSt. Michaels Maryland

• USFA Research Program for Emergency Responder
  Operational Safety

Bill Troup Bill.Troup_at_dhs.gov301.447.1231
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US FIRE ADMINISTRATORCHIEF GREG CADE
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Firefighter Fatalities Homepage
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Year after year vehicle crashes are the second
leading cause and account for 20-25 percent of
firefighter fatalities To reduce, if not
eliminate, deaths from vehicle crashes and being
struck by USFA initiated the Fire Service
Emergency Vehicle Safety Initiative
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• Not Only Does This Impact The Fire Service, It
  Also Affects Those We Serve!
• A 1998 University of Michigan Study illustrated
• 21 Civilians Killed by Fire Apparatus Yearly
• 642 Civilians Injured by Fire Apparatus Yearly
• 2,472 Fire Apparatus Crashes Yearly

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Ambulance Occupant Safety Crash Testing with NIOSH
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Ambulance Occupant Safety Crash Testing
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Ambulance Occupant Safety Crash Testing
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Supporting the Cumberland Valley Volunteer
Firemens Association (CVVFA) Emergency Responder
Safety Institute
ANSI 207 Pubic Safety Vest
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Research on Non-Blinding Emergency Warning
Lighting with the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE)
Preliminary setup for field study
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Research on Non-Blinding Emergency Warning
Lighting with the Society of Automotive Engineers
(SAE)
Preliminary setup for field study
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Additional USFA initiatives in Emergency Vehicle
Safety Study of Emergency Vehicle Visibility and
Conspicuity Partnership with the International
Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA)
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Study of Emergency Vehicle Visibility and
Conspicuity Partnership with the International
Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA)
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Fire Dynamics Simulation
Long term partnership between USFA and the
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST).
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Firefighter Deaths During Training
Source USFAs Firefighter Fatalities in the
United States in 2006
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Live Fire Training Limitations
Cannot simulate the large range of fire
conditions, situations, and scenarios that
firefighters must be prepared for in a real world
fire Environmental concerns may limit the amount
and kind of live fire training available
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Virtual Fire Fighter Trainer
Computer-based fire fighting training tool being
developed to give fire fighters the opportunity
to practice tactical fire fighting techniques
while reducing the risk of death and injury and
the cost of providing valuable training Overall
Goal to develop the trainer for environments
that are more representative of fire ground
conditions which can not be safely achieved or
are undesirable in typical live fire training
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Virtual Fire Fighter Trainer
Approach Measure thermal conditions in
training buildings Use NISTs software
toolsFire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) and
Smokeviewto simulate and visualize a variety of
fire fighter training scenarios
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Virtual Fire Fighter Trainer
What is FDS? Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
model of fire-driven fluid flow Computer model
that predicts Gas Temperature Gas Velocity
Heat Transfer
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Virtual Fire Fighter Trainer
What is Smokeview? Visualization program that is
used to display the results of an FDS simulation
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Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase I

• Validate the trainer against several repeatable
  fires in a
• flashover simulator and wood fired and
  propane
• training towers
• The output of Phase I will be two-fold
• Provide the fire service with temperature and
  heat flux
• data for the typical training environments
• Validation of the trainer in a controlledenviron
  ment

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Wood Fired Trainers
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Temperature
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Example of Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase I
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Example of Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase I
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Example of Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase I
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Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase II
Validate models against real world trainer
data Develop an interactive trainer module for a
stand alone residential structure
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Example of Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase II
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Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase III
Complete a suite of interactive training modules
for three different types of residential
structures
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Example of Virtual Fire Fighter TrainerPhase III
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Evaluating Structural Ventilation Techniques
Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
Experimental vs. FDS Flow Pattern Analysis
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Evaluating Structural Ventilation Techniques
Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
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Evaluating Structural Ventilation Techniques
Using Computational Fluid Dynamics
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Research on Structural Collapse Prediction Tools
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Research on Thermal Imaging Technology
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Fire Service Lightweight Wood Construction
Awareness Outreach Cooperative Agreement with
American Forest Paper Association (AFPA)
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Lightweight Wood Construction Awareness Outreach
Comprehensive Web-based educational program to
help the fire service learn more about
lightweight wood construction components and the
performance of these building materials during
fires.
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Lightweight Wood Construction Awareness Outreach
Included in this program is FireFrame, an
interactive tool on building construction for the
fire service. This program was developed with
the assistance of several state and local fire
training systems. http//www.woodaware.info/
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Awareness Level Program
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TRUSSES
GLUED LAMINATED TIMBER and STRUCTURAL COMPOSITE
LUMBER
WOOD STRUCTURAL PANELS
I-JOISTS
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• Additional USFA Research Activities of Interest
• Development of Fire Fighter Autopsy Protocol
• Fire Department Communications Operability
• Rural Fire Mitigation
• Traffic Incident Management
• Sleep Deprivation Study

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• United States Fire Administration
• National Fire Data Center
• For further information or assistance, please
  contact me
• Bill Troup [phone] - bill.troup_at_dhs.gov
• And the USFA Applied Research Technology web
  page at
• http//www.usfa.dhs.gov/fireservice/research/index
  .shtm

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Thank you!
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