Virtual reality at Buncefield

Published: 01 April, 2006

Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service has been using the VectorCommand system for many years in order to train for various incidents such as a large refinery fire.

Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service has been using the VectorCommand system for many years in order to train for various incidents such as a large refinery fire.
The VectorCommand training and simulation system helps emergency services fulfil their obligations for providing comprehensive, realistic virtual reality-based training for staff preparing to deal with a variety of common fire scenarios which would not be possible due to the complex nature of a real event. Personnel are given the opportunity to demonstrate their command capabilities and to be measured against national standards. The VectorCommand system logs every action and event during an exercise, allowing facilitators to review student performance and assessors to determine operational assurance.
Gordon Gilmour, whose career spans over 33 years of experience in the fire and industry sectors (which included three major incidents of a similar nature to Buncefield), explained that the VectorCommand system has played a key role in the firefighters training programme helping their incident commanders and support staff to prepare for such eventualities. The Fire Brigade Unions implication that Hertfordshire Fire & Rescue Service was not prepared for such an incident, therefore appears to be misinformed. The Brigade has indeed received intensive training on the VectorCommand system and applies its potential uses to their command development program regularly.
The petro-chemical scenario, one of many within the VectorCommand system library, was built to allow inter-operability issues between the fire brigade and the initial emergency responders on site to be identified and addressed. Consequential joint preparation for emergencies is therefore better informed and coordinated thus providing a more effective and cohesive delivery of control measures. This fits in with the requirement placed on industry under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH) where a joint approach from responding agencies is sought.
Several industry clients who must comply with these COMAH regulations currently use the VectorCommand system. One in particular is Keith Jackson who is Site Operations Manager at Simon Storage UK Ltd North Lincolnshire, a similar chemicals storage facility to Buncefield in Hertfordshire. Keith says “We have been using the system for over 5 years to develop our site emergency responders and emergency operations centre staff and feel we are now more alert to the consequential actions following an unexpected event.”

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