Playing with fire: How VR is being used to train the next generation of firefighters

It might look like I've just entered a Ghostbusters costume contest, but what you see is actually the cutting edge of virtual reality (VR) firefighter training.

VR Technology has been with us for years, but is still a relatively niche pursuit, primarily occupied by Gamers using the best VR headsets for immersive gaming.

But there are tons of exciting applications for the Technology emerging in professional environments. HTC, one of the big names in VR, invited Live Science to the idyllic English town of Moreton-in-Marsh — home of the Fire Service College — to learn how VR is training our next generation of firefighters.

Before we actually saw any training programs, we were shown around the world-class incident training ground by Paul Speight, incident coMMAnd instructor at the college. We toured the various buildings they use to practice fire rescue scenarios, including the UK’s shortest motorway and a mock section of an offshore oil rig, which Speight was more than happy to ignite for our amazement.

I’ve stood beside large, roaring fires before — in the U.K. we have annual bonfires on Guy Fawkes night (Nov. 5) — but I was not prepared for the heat coming from this blaze. The faux rig fire used gas, rather than oil, to reduce pollution and Speight said it was easily several thousand degrees celsius (for reference, natural gas burns at 3,560 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1,960 degrees Celsius), which was toasty even at the 40-foot (12 meters) distance we started from, and about as hot as I could bear when we moved up onto the rig itself.

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That raised an interesting issue with "virtual firefighting" — you can animate the fire in a virtual environment and slap a fake hose in someone’s hand, but how do you replicate the physical sensations? The heat? The smoke? The stress? I'd get my answer soon enough, but only after some virtual sleuthing.