Simulation and Serious Game for Fire Evacuation Training

The efficiency of evacuation from big buildings during emergency situations is a fundamental issue to guarantee the safety of regular staff. Fire evacuation maps show the position of closest exits, alarm buttons and... [ view full abstract ]

The efficiency of evacuation from big buildings during emergency situations is a fundamental issue to guarantee the safety of regular staff. Fire evacuation maps show the position of closest exits, alarm buttons and firefighting equipment, but usually no one pays attention to such important information. In addition, fire drills do not create a fire simulation and are not able to train people to manage their behavior during a panic situation. 
Nowadays, the literature shows several training solutions using simulation tools to improve the development of specific skills. In this context, through this contribution, authors present a simulation and serious game (SSG) to train people who work on a specific floor of a tower to fire evacuation. More specifically, this VR (virtual reality) training-game presents four different levels of difficulties in order to train users to the position of fire exit stairs and firefighting equipment, to identify alternative evacuate paths and to manage their emotions during a scary situation through a fire simulation in a virtual environment. Therefore, this VR-based evacuation fire training simulator allows users to live a fire experience amplifying their escape skills from the tower. Once this training solution has been tested by regular staff of the building, they had to fill out a questionnaire highlighting the potentialities of these innovative training methods.