SIN: Multimedia-based teaching tool for computer-supported fire-fighter training

Abstract

Fire-fighters work under extremely stressful conditions where even their own lives and the lives of potential victims can be at stake. It is clear that there is no room for error and that extensive training is crucial in this regard. In Slovenia the greater part of the fire-fighting force consists of volunteers, whose training must be of the same quality as that of their career colleagues. Fire-fighters receive the bulk of their basic training in-house at their fire departments and by assisting at actual fires. More advanced training is received at special training facilities where the training is divided into a series of relatively short courses consisting of both theoretical and practical parts. This training culminates in a practical exam aimed at demonstrating their acquired knowledge. This article presents a new multimedia-based teaching tool SIN that has been designed for computer-supported theoretical knowledge delivery during fire-fighter training, where the emergency operations are visualised within environments familiar to the trainees. In order to save time the entire scenario is based on photographic images of real places. This application has already been successfully tested and is currently in use by the fire-fighter school at the Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief.