10th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications – CogInfoCom 2019 • October 23-25, 2019 • Naples, Italy

Demo Paper: Virtual Reality in Fire Safety –

Electric Cabin Fire Simulation
Mazin Al-Adawi1, and Mika Luimula2
1
Nizwa College of Applied Sciences, Nizwa Oman
2
Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku Finland
mazin.adawi.niz@cas.edu.om; mika.luimula@turkuamk.fi

Abstract – This demonstration paper introduces a fire
safety application designed for professionals, and
students. Our hands-on-training solution is an example
how virtual reality as an interactive technology can be
used in demanding and hazardous training contexts. In
this demonstration, an electric cabin has been chosen
as a training context. Solution is tracking and tracing
player’s behavior and feedback is given at the end of
this learning episode. This portable solution can be
used in training centers and higher education institutes
but also in industry as a part of continuous education.
Keywords: Virtual training, Virtual reality, Fire safety
training, Simulations.
foam fire extinguisher, a fire hose, and a C02 fire
extinguisher. The player should be able to choose a C02
fire extinguisher designed for electrical, gas and oil burns
(Fig.1). The fire is initially inside the electrical cabinet and
only smoke is visible to the hallway where the player is.
Later, a larger flame will also appear.
After selecting the C02 fire extinguisher, releasing the pin
and opening the door, the smoke floats in the air and also
player’s face gets smoke. The player has to crouch walk
towards the burning object and stay on his or her knees
during the shutdown. The player should point the nozzle to
the root of the flames and the trigger handle must be
pressed (Fig. 2).

I. INTRODUCTION
As a motivation for this demonstration has been the
identified needs in fire safety in Oman and Finland. In our
previous studies we have developed another fire safety
training application called Virpa in which player’s task
was to escape an office building after fire alarm was
triggered [1]. This study indicated that serious game
utilizing virtual reality has potential to raise awareness of
fire safety and perhaps even to enhance safety skills and
knowledge of the players.
Electric Cabin Fire Simulation application introduced in
this paper is developed in Turku University of Applied
Sciences (TUAS) and is designed for virtual reality glasses
(HTC Vive Pro). While designing this application we have
tried to focus on challenges how to make communication
of the information more natural for the users (cf. [2]).
Figure 2. The application is monitoring player’s behavior and the
feedback is shown at the end of the training.
Our training solution is tracking and tracing the player’s
behavior during the game. The player should be able to
pick up the correct tool. Extra score will be given if
extinguishing the flames in the time limit. The player
should remove the pin before going in. In addition, the
player should press the fire alarm, and close the door at the
end. The player will be given penalty score for standing in
the smoke or if going too close to the fire. All this feedback
is visualized for the player at the end of the learning
episode. If needed the player is able to start all over again
to make enough repetitions for the correct actions. The
duration of this learning episode is around 10 minutes and
application contains minimal textual information which
can be translated easily for different nationalities.

II. FIRST EXPERIENCES IN OMAN

Figure 1. The player should be able to select the correct fire extinguisher.
The main object in this training solution is to develop the
player's initial fire safety skills. The manuscript of this
learning episode is as follows: “The environment is a
simple room with a metal cabinet. The player comes in and
sees the electric cabinet on fire. He or she should choose
the most appropriate extinguishing method for the
situation. The options include a fire blanket, a membrane
This application is developed in Finland and has
received promising feedback from the technology
industry. Therefore we decided to test this application in a
different cultural context in Oman. In order to receive first
experiences we recruited 16 trainees from National
Training Center (NTI) in Muscat. We conducted a user
experience, user demographic and user satisfaction
questionnaire.

978-1-7281-4793-2/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE 000551

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 M. Al-Adawi and M. Luimula • Demo Paper: Virtual Reality in Fire Safety – Electric Cabin Fire Simulation
Figure 3. Results of the user experience, user demographic and user
satisfaction questionnaire.
As we can see from Figure 3 more than 80% of the players
felt the application thought them something new about fire
safety or acting in a fire situation. And more than 80%
believed the game helped them understand how they’re
acting in a fire situation easily. In addition, more than 80%
of the players said the application was effective to
understand fire safety issues and around 80% preferred
using VR learning methods instead of traditional learning
methods. Furthermore over 70% of the players strongly
agreed enjoynment, easeness, reality and immersiveness of
the application. And finally, more than 80% of them were
satisfied about keeping concentration, positiveness,
recommendation and safety.
Figure 4. Players’ behavior collected in this learning episode.
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As mentioned above the player will receive immediate
feedback at the end of this learning episode (Fig. 4). Only
three players out of fifteen had a lot of challenges while
playing. As we can see these three players were using a lot
of time and breathing smoke gases while using fire
extinguisher. On the other hand, almost every players were
standing some time in the smoke. We can also see that only
one player was not pressing the fire alarm.
CONCLUSION
In this demonstration paper, we have introduced a fire
safety application. This hands-on-training VR application
is designed for professionals, and students. The first
experiences in Oman and Finland seems to be quite
promising and we have decided to continue these
experiments in both countries. We have plans to scale this
application to different environments such as cruise ships
or industrial buildings. In addition, we will develop more
learning episodes for fire safety training. Also back end
system will be developed in order to focus more
systematically on learning analytics.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank everyone who have
participated in the development of this VR training
application and in the experiments in the Sultanate of
Oman. This work was supported by Business Finland, and
Turku University of Applied Sciences. We would also like
to thank our industrial partners in Finland and Oman.
REFERENCES
[1] Oliva, D., Somerkoski, B., Tarkkanen, K., Lehto A., and Luimula,
M. Virtual reality as a communication tool for fire safety –
Experiences from the VirPa project. In: Proceeding of the 3rd
GamiFIN conference, Levi, Finland, 2019, pp. 241-252.
[2] Baranyi, P., and Csabo, A. Definition and Synergies of Cognitie
Infocommunication, Acta Polytechnica Hungarica 9(1), 2012 pp.
67-83,.