CODE RED: MOBILE was a mobile training exercise for firefighters conducted at Hanging Rock Reserve in Central Victoria. It used visualizations created in the Crysis Wars game editor and viewed on iPads to simulate a bushfire scenario. GPS data was collected from participants and analyzed using ArcMap and Geotime software to evaluate performance. Preliminary results found that static visualizations were as useful as movies for training, but not enough firefighters passed a post-test, suggesting the exercise needs improvement. The author concludes mobile location-based scenarios have potential for emergency services training when combined with analysis of participant behavior data.

1. CODE RED: MOBILE
A mobile scenario based training
exercise for CFA
firefighters.
Presented by Brian Quinn

2. CODE RED: MOBILE
• The author is a member of Newham Rural Fire Brigade and a
PhD candidate at RMIT University, Melbourne.
• CODE RED: MOBILE is the title of a training exercise at the
Hanging Rock Reserve in Central Victoria undertaken by
members of the Mt Macedon Group of Brigades.
• CODE RED: MOBILE is also a mobile experiment to
evaluate visualisation treatments as well as the overall success
of the training exercise.

3. Bushfires

4. Newham and Hanging Rock

5. PhD project
Research Questions:
• Which theories of game and game design, psychology, spatial
cognition, navigation, decision making and learning are most
suitable for developing design principles for a time sensitive
decision making scenario based game using visualisations on
computer and mobile devices?
• What are the design principles for visualisations that best
support decision making under stressful conditions?

6. Cost of Bushfires in Australia 1967-1999

7. Number of Houses Destroyed 1939-2006

8. Costs of Black Saturday, Victoria 2009
From: Estimating the net cost of the 2009 Black Saturday Fires to the affected regions
Catherine Stephenson, Research Officer, Centre for Risk and Community Safety, RMIT University and Bushfire CRC, John Handmer,
Director, Centre for Risk and Community Safety, and Aimee Haywood, Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria

9. Improving our response to bushfire management.
• We need better ways to inform firefighters and the
community.
• Can we exploit some of the technology that the community
are familiar with- like mobile devices?
• Mobile visualisations at a location familiar to participants
may provide training with more impact.

10. The database for Webpark
linked locations to multimedia
content classified by location
and by ontological relationship
to other content. Edwardes et
al (2005).
Dias (2007) studied visitor use of
WebPark. The users who had the
location based services on a
mobile device scored best on
location based recall ( p 89).

11. Admiraal et al (2009) reported that “…mobile games... are excellent ways to combine situated, active and constructive learning
with fun” (p 302). 216 students played the game.

12. Brown et al, 2010
Brown et al, 2010 summarise that mobile devices can reduce cognitive load. However too much support leads to a lack of
learning and personal cognitive maps are not then constructed by the participant. A game based approach may lead to the
development of personal cognitive maps.

13. Why Hanging Rock?

14. Hanging Rock is in Newham Rural Fire Brigade’s
area.

15. Newham RFB

16. Just before Ash Wednesday Disaster 1983

17. Technical assistance for the Firefighter.
• Fire Behaviour Analysts predict fires and their impact,
particularly using Phoenix RapidFire.
• CFA and DSE Fire Mappers use in house mapping products as
well as Arcmap.
• The State Control Centre in Melbourne assists local Incident
Control Centres. At high levels of alert on a day of Extreme
Fire Danger for the State all centres are fully staffed.
• Aircraft can be called upon to take Infra Red aerial images to
find hot spots and fire fronts.
• Ground Observers can be tasked to report on the fire.

18. Predicting the course of a fire
Phoenix Rapid Fire created by Dr Kevin Tolhurst, Derek Chong and Dr Tom Duff
University of Melbourne

19. Phoenix Rapidfire prediction for a location near
Hanging Rock

20. The Applications and Devices
• GPS tracking using Trimble Juno SB
• Visualisations created with Sandbox2 editor included with
Crysis Wars game (crytek.com)
• Maps created from Spatial Vision’s VICMAP BOOK, Central
Region which is used by Country Fire Fighters and Incident
Control Centres for base maps, paper and electronic.
• Visualisations viewed in 7scenes (free version) of mobile
game framework (7scenes.com) on iPad New.

21. The Making of CODE RED: MOBILE
• Crysis Wars (crytek.com) provides a 3D scene editor which
produces good quality 3D scenes. Real terrain height maps
can be used to create the scene’s terrain. Models can be
imported from 3DS Max and other 3D graphics editors.
• 7Scenes (7scenes.com) is a location based game editor. Free
to use for sight- seeing genre.

22. Overview of Hanging Rock Fire

23. 7Scenes: editor

24. Making the Visualisations in Sandbox2
• Sandbox2 has a collection of flames, smoke, explosions and
clouds, some of which can be affected by a global wind.
• It also has a collection of buildings, vehicles, fences which
can be edited and used in a scene.
• Vegetation collection includes grass and tree types that can be
affected by the global wind.

25. Collecting images
The Mt Beckworth Fire

26. The Mt Beckworth Fire

27. Ground fire

28. Newham Brigade Burn Off

29. Grass fire

30. The Racecourse Lake: an iconic feature for finding
location

31. The Sandbox2 version above

32. Rock and Bush textures and general look

33. Ember attack, Canberra 2003
Photo: Pat Scala, Fairfax Syndication. Used with permission.

34. Ember Storm in Sandbox2

35. Pyroculonimbus
Left: Photo: Monica Minford, Dreamstime.com. Used with permission. Right:
Sandbox2 version

36. Editing Flames and Smoke

37. AVS4YOU for editing movies

38. 7scenes track and participant’s log in top right hand
console

39. Bushfire Events
• Car crashes into tree on Colwells Lane
• After about 20 minutes the fire spreads South driven by the
northerly winds.
• Fire reaches the east side of the lake after about 3 minutes.
• Reaches south of lake after 4 minutes.
• Windchange occurs, the eastern flank becomes the new fire
front, heading eastwards.

40. Car Crash at Point of Origin- the POO

41. Elliptically shaped fire near origin

42. Part of a slide show in 7scenes featuring the annotated
Spatial Vision map of the Hanging Rock Bushfire

43. Fire reaches the side of the lake. Hanging Rock and
Race Callers Tower assist in locating fire movie

44. View from west side of the fire

45. Slideshow features extent of the fire following the
wind change.

46. Movie with static annotated pictures, explaining the
wind change

47. Firefighter taking part in CODE RED: MOBILE

48. Data for Analysis
• How many houses participants correctly
decided would burn down.
• Selection of correct order of events in a debrief
task.
• Map of their GPS tracks.

49. Rescuing GPS tracks

50. Xlsx of tracks ready for ArcMap 10 and Geotime 5.3

51. GPS Tracks (all sessions) on Cricket Oval for CODE
RED: MOBILE

52. Geotime 5.3: Tracks, Trails and Active Zones

53. More Active Zones

54. Geotime5.3: locating participants as they set off after
reading task marker information

55. Locating errors in half tracks

56. Player tracks in Unreal Tournament
unknown source

57. Heatmap of player activity in Halo Game
http://halowiki.net/p/File:Mesh_guardian_heatmap.jpg

58. Kernel Density Heatmap of CODE RED: MOBILE
in ArcMap 10

59. Nearest Neighbour Heatmap of CODE RED:
MOBILE in ArcMap 10

60. Searching for the House Markers visualisaed with
Geotime 5.3 (oculus.com)

61. Unveiling the outliers with Active Site Finder

62. PRELIMINARY RESULTS
• Static Visualisations are as useful as Movies.
• With a pass mark of 70% not enough of the firefighters
passed.
• Complex to organise.
• Ten at a time is probably optimum.

63. In Conclusion
• Useful dynamic and static geovisualisations of bushfires can
be made with a COTS game editor.
• Location based scenario is a viable option for field training for
firefighters and likely other emergency services.
• GPS and logs of participant behaviour in location based
application can provide rich source of data about individual
and group performance as well as the utility of the
application.
• ArcMap 10 plus Geotime 5.3 are useful tools for analysing
behaviours in a mobile location based exercise.

64. Acknowledgements
• Apple University Consortium, Australia.
• CFA, Region 2
• Mt Macedon CFA Group: Martin Leitch, Group Training
Officer
• Newham RFB: Brigitte Kny Training Officer
• RMIT University: Prof W. Cartwright, Monique Elsley and
Chris Marmo, SMGS
• Macedon Ranges Shire
• Hanging Rock Reserve Staff
• Judy and James Quinn

65. Newham Firefighters return to Fire Station
email: pb.quinn@bigpond.com