Simulator to help hone firefighters’ driving skills

The St. George Fire Protection District will soon have a fancy new simulator to train its firefighters on how to drive fire trucks in emergency situations.

The district, which includes Highland Road, Perkins Road, Siegen Lane, Bluebonnet Boulevard and Coursey Boulevard, will purchase a driver’s training simulator that can replicate the instrumentation, controls and field of vision of an actual St. George fire truck, said Boyd Westbrook, St. George’s chief of operations.

The simulator, which will be purchased with a $196,000 grant awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program, generates three-dimensional motion for a greater sense of realism, Westbrook said.

“These simulators, you can make it to where you’re driving in slick weather or at night,” Westbrook said.

The device even has scenarios where other drivers run red lights in front of the truck or won’t pull over to the side of the road so the truck can pass it, Westbrook said.

St. George only allows its trainees to drive its trucks in parking lots, Westbrook said.

“Until they are actually turned loose and we say they’re OK to drive, they’ve never driven in emergency situations,” Westbrook said.

New drivers must go through 40 hours of training, and every driver has to get 12 hours of training annually, Westbrook said.

“(The simulator) is going to help us tremendously with the training, especially our new drivers,” Westbrook said.

The simulator, which will be the first for St. George, will likely be housed at the district’s headquarters on Airline Highway. He said he does not know when the simulator will arrive.

St. George had its eye on a simulator after seeing the Baton Rouge Fire Department’s simulator, Westbrook said.

The Baton Rouge Fire Department received its simulator about a year ago through a federal grant, department spokesman Curt Monte said.

Monte said the simulator has been “extremely beneficial” to the department.

“It not only helped the department, but it helps the public, too,” Monte said. “There’s really not a time that you can get them off in a truck and have them respond to lights and sirens in a training atmosphere.”

Since 2001, the Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program has awarded about $5 billion to fire departments and other first responders for equipment, training and other resources, the St. George news release says.

St. George has purchased equipment such as generators, oxygen apparatuses and radios in the past by using grants from the program, Westbrook said.

Fire departments have to request specific items when applying for the grants, he said.

“This time, we decided we were finally going to ask for a simulator,” Westbrook said.

St. George submitted its grant application in May and was notified Feb. 3 that it would receive the money, Westbrook said.

The money available via the grants varies, Westbrook said. For example, St. George received $134,000 in 2003, $275,000 in 2005, $60,000 in 2006 and $215,000 in 2009, Westbrook said.