By Omran Wahidy

Virtual reality fire safety program coming to Alberta

Aug 8, 2023 | 5:12 PM

DUNMORE, AB – A fire safety program created to give users the ability to make real-life decisions without facing consequences is being implemented in Calgary, before being rolled out to other jurisdictions.

The new program has caught the attention of fire departments in rural areas and small towns in southern Alberta as a tool that can be used to educate.

The Calgary Fire Department is using a virtual reality fire safety program to help educate Calgarians and mimic real life in a controlled setting. The City of Calgary and Conoco Phillips collaborated with the fire department to create a program that teaches users how to handle common hazards in their homes.

Jeff Budai, community safety coordinator for the Calgary Fire Department, says it was paramount to move away from the conventional teachings of fire safety.

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“You can tell young children not to put water in a grease fire, but at the end of the day, you can’t actually show them what the consequences are. Whereas when you have the virtual reality headset on you can actually see what happens.”

The cost for the whole system was around $135,000 and Budai says that tends to scare other fire departments away.

“If departments can’t afford it right now just stay tuned and hopefully we can get to a point where commercialization is an option. We’d love to see other fire departments across Canada and North America benefitting from the technology that we put so many hours into,” said Budai.

The new program has eyes from other fire departments around southern Alberta watching closely. Jason Linton, Cypress County fire chief and emergency services coordinator, says it is an amazing opportunity.

“It’s pretty leading edge to be able to train the public prevention side of firefighting and what we do. And the more education for fire and awareness and to get people to understand how to prevent fires or the use of fire extinguishers is very important in this day and age.”

But Linton says his fire department is not new to the use of virtual reality, despite not having its own headsets.

“The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association actually has virtual headset training, and we were able to rent that from them for free. And we did a fire fighting extinguisher training with the elementary students at the Irvine school during safety day,” said Linton.

But the question becomes how to bring these headsets out for everyday use in rural and small-town communities.

“With us being such a small rural populated area, it doesn’t make sense to us to borrow those from our community partners,” said Linton.

For Budai, this technology is something he hopes to share across the country.

“It’s not something that we are just going to hide under our wings and keep to ourselves. I think it’s important that fire departments across North America try to work together and try to have the same impact.”

The Calgary Fire Department will roll out six headsets in September to select schools and communities.