Put the Student in Front of the Fire, Not a Description of One
Most size-up training happens with an instructor narrating conditions: “You’ve got smoke showing from the second floor, Charlie side.” The student hears the answer instead of finding it. Fireground Theater puts a scene on the screen and makes the student read it — what’s showing, where it’s showing, and what changed after their orders.
You stage the conditions. The student gives their size-up and assignments. You decide whether things get better or worse, and the screen shows the result. No scripted answers, no AI judging tactics — the instructor stays in charge of the evaluation.
Opens in a new tab and runs full-screen. Works on a laptop, tablet, or phone, and puts a clean display on any projector or TV. Free to use, no account required.
What’s in it
- Twelve built-in scenes, each with a full 360. Residence, strip mall, office, manufacturing plant, process unit, tank farm, chip silo, cryogenic offload, container yard, vehicle accident, semi rollover, and rail tank car — every one drawn from all four sides so the student can walk the building.
- Your own buildings. Photograph a target hazard from four sides, load the photos, and stage conditions on the real structure your crews will respond to.
- Fire and hazmat effects that behave. Light and dark smoke, flame, pool fire, directional relief-valve flare, and low-lying vapor cloud — each with size, volume, and wind drift you control. Smoke rises and drifts; vapor hugs the ground and moves downwind.
- Better / Worse decision branches. Build a scenario as a tree: what the student sees on arrival, what happens if their actions work, what happens if they don’t. Two students can drive the same scenario to different outcomes.
- Quick scenarios. No time to build? Tap Fire, Hazmat, or Surprise Me and get a ready-to-run scenario for the scene you have open — always with something hidden off the Alpha side, so the 360 matters.
- Big-screen display. Run the controls from your laptop and put a clean, label-free view of the scene on the projector or TV. The student sees conditions, not your buttons.
- Save and share. Scenarios save in your browser, and you can export any of them as a file to send to another instructor.
Running a session
- Pick a scene, or load your own photos. Tap Fire or Hazmat for an instant scenario, or place effects by hand and build your own branches.
- Tap Run scenario, then Open display window and drag that window to your projector or TV.
- The student gives their size-up. Use the A / B / C / D buttons to walk them around the building when they call for a 360.
- After their orders, tap Better or Worse. The display updates. Repeat until the scenario ends — then debrief on what they saw and what they missed.
Where it fits
Company officer and chief officer development, promotional assessment centers, industrial emergency response team drills, hazmat operations, pre-incident planning review of target hazards, and any evolution where the decision should come from reading conditions rather than hearing them described. The industrial scenes — tank farm, process unit, cryogenic offload, silo, rail car — cover ground that most command simulators leave out entirely.
Pairs well with the Gas Monitor Simulator for hazmat evolutions and the Incident Command Trainers for the radio side of the same problem.