General News
5 April, 2023
FLAIM system a boon for local and international firies
A state-of-the-art reality training program helping prepare firefighters across 45 countries for the challenges of a fire ground has received a $6.7 million investment to further its development — and the spark was ignited in Maryborough. The...
A state-of-the-art reality training program helping prepare firefighters across 45 countries for the challenges of a fire ground has received a $6.7 million investment to further its development — and the spark was ignited in Maryborough.
The FLAIM Systems founder and CTO James Mullins is a third-generation volunteer firefighter from Maryborough, and after watching family members fight fires in the area, was inspired to create the virtual learning system.
The FLAIM system is designed to improve safety and performance for those who respond to fire, rescue and emergency situations.
It utilises a virtual reality system combined with real equipment such as hose reels and breathing apparatus — and automated sense-perception devices like heat pads — to imitate real world situations, such as knowing how it feels to use a fire extinguisher or being lifted off your feet by a fire hose. There are currently 80 different training scenarios available.
Dr Mullins said a lack of hot fire training is a challenge across metro and regional brigades — and firefighters worldwide — something the system aims to address.
“I’m a third generation firefighter, I grew up on the truck with dad and saw my grandfather do it. One of the challenges we have is getting to hot fire training grounds,” he said.
“Quite often around the world we find firefighters don’t get that training any more regularly than every couple of years on average.
“This technology allows you to get people inside an incident, and gives them the experience of a ‘feels real’ approach. If you’re holding a fire hose, it gives you the force that’s pulling you off your feet.
We heat you up to over 100 degrees depending on your proximity to the fire, and capture your biometrics, heart and respiration rate so we can understand how stressed you are in the environment.
“There’s also the environmental impacts of hot fire training — in Australia we can’t use firefighting foam to train so the first time firefighters use it is in operation which is a challenge.
“There’s also the environmental issue of water usage and burning things, FLAIM reduces Co2 emissions by not needing those real burns so often.”
Officially started in 2019, FLAIM now supplies to around 45 countries, including the United States and United Kingdom.
The businesses was also the recipient of the Business Achievement Award at the Victorian Community Achievement Awards 2022.
Following its success, the company has received a $5 million investment from shareholder Breakthrough Victoria — an independent company which manages the Victorian Government’s $2 billion Breakthrough Victoria Fund — towards a total $6.7 Series A capital injection.
Dr Mullins said the investment is a confidence boost and will benefit future learning outcomes.
“The State Government has done quite a bit of due diligence on us that gave them the confidence to invest, and us the confidence that we’re in a sector that really is growing,” he said.
“Virtual kinaesthetic learning is what we’re working on, and it’s a technology sector that we think will see quite a bit of growth.
“I grew up in the blackboard days, moving onto the white board and overhead transferency, then the digital data projector — now e-learning and virtual immersive learning is the next step in that journey. It’s a lot more engaging for students and retention is a lot higher.”
The investment will support FLAIM Systems to expand its operations and further develop its technology, with job creation already starting.
“We started out with a couple of us about four and a half years ago and now we’re a team of about 43, heading to 60 or 70 this year hopefully,” Dr Mullins said.
“We’re in all seven continents now — we shipped a system down to Antarctica towards the end of the year. The Australian base there is using it for training. You can’t just call the fire brigade there.”
The business has been praised by Breakthrough Victoria chair and former Victorian Premier John Brumby.
“Firefighters put their lives on the line to keep our community safe — this innovation in virtual reality training will help keep them safe during training and provide the experience they need on the frontline,” Mr Brumby said.
“We see a real potential for this world-first Victorian technology to be adopted by emergency services agencies around the world.”