By Battalion Chief Dillon Dextradeur
We spend countless hours developing the skills required to stretch a hoseline, force a door, search a building or operate an apparatus. Yet one of the most consequential positions on the fireground can also be one of the most difficult to realistically train: the incident commander.
For the Virginia Beach Fire Department, developing a deliberate approach to command training did not begin with simulation software or a formal quarterly program. It began with an acquired structure and a question: Are we commanding incidents as consistently as we think we are?
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More than a decade later, what started as an effort to evaluate high-rise tactics and standardize fireground command has evolved into a quarterly command simulation program involving approximately 35 chief officers over three to four training days each quarter.
The program exposes participants to structure fires, high-rise incidents, maydays, technical rescues, marine emergencies, hazmat incidents, mass-casualty events and other high-risk/low-frequency situations. It also provides opportunities to train alongside external partners, creating conversations about organizational priorities and operational expectations before agencies meet one another during an actual emergency.
Over the years, as technology has changed, the scenarios have become more sophisticated. But the objective remains largely the same: Build a common command system and practice it before the next significant incident requires us to use it.
The catalyst: Putting tactics to the test
In 2014, the Virginia Beach Fire Department gained access to an acquired high-rise structure that provided an opportunity for realistic operational training. The building allowed us to move beyond discussing high-rise tactics in a classroom and actually put our procedures to the test. Crews could stretch lines, transition to upper floors and operate within a realistic high-rise environment. More importantly, we could collect data around operational benchmarks, including the time required to transition personnel to upper floors and place water on the fire.
The training was valuable for evaluating tactics, but it also revealed something beyond hose deployment and movement times: We needed to further standardize how incidents were being commanded.
Virginia Beach operates five operational battalions across three shifts. With multiple chief officers responsible for managing incidents throughout the city, consistency matters. Radio terminology, resource assignment and tracking, information organization and benchmark communication all influence how effectively companies operate.
Looking outside the organization
The acquired structure helped identify the issue, but it did not provide the solution, so the next step was education.
Command-level members attended training programs around the country to study different approaches to incident command. The goal was not to simply copy another department’s system. Instead, we wanted to identify successful practices and determine which concepts fit our organization, staffing model, response profile and operational risks. After all, every fire department has different staffing, resources, terminology, building stock and community hazards. A command system must work for the organization that is expected to use it.
From that research and internal discussion, Virginia Beach developed a standardized command board and increasingly common expectations for how incidents would be managed.
We also knew that creating a tool and teaching a process once would not be enough. If we expected five operational battalions working across three shifts to command incidents consistently, command training needed to become recurring rather than occasional. That realization became the foundation for quarterly command simulations.
Building repetition into command
Today, approximately 35 Virginia Beach chief officers participate in command simulation training each quarter. The sessions are conducted over three or four days, allowing operational and admin chiefs to rotate through the Virginia Beach Fire Training Center while maintaining coverage throughout the city.
The early program relied heavily on stock computer-based scenarios using SimsUShare. Those scenarios gave us an effective starting point and, most importantly, provided an opportunity for chiefs to repeatedly practice incident command in a controlled environment. Over time, both the technology and the program evolved.
Today, photographs of actual buildings and locations throughout Virginia Beach are incorporated into simulations. Instead of commanding a generic apartment fire or commercial building, an IC may recognize the occupancy on the screen as a building they pass regularly or one located within their battalion. That local connection significantly increases realism. It also allows training personnel to build scenarios around the actual challenges associated with the community’s target hazards, unique occupancies and response environment.
The scenarios cover residential and multifamily structure fires, commercial occupancies, high-rise buildings, marine incidents, hazmat emergencies, technical rescues, mayday events, active-threat incidents and large-scale events associated with Virginia Beach’s oceanfront and other major venues.
The goal is to create repetitions. Within a single training session, a chief officer may command multiple incidents requiring different strategies, resource configurations and command structures.
Instead of waiting years to accumulate that breadth of experience in the field, simulation allows us to compress experience into several hours. This is particularly important for high-risk/low-frequency events.
Bringing partners to the table before the emergency
As the program developed, command simulations also became an opportunity to involve external public-safety partners. For example, Virginia Beach Fire regularly works with organizations such as Virginia Beach EMS, Police, Emergency Communications, Virginia Natural Gas, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies that may have significant responsibilities during complex incidents. Including those partners provides benefits beyond simply making the scenario more realistic.
Complex incidents frequently involve organizations with different priorities, terminology, capabilities and command responsibilities. Those differences are much easier to identify and discuss while standing in a training center than during an actual emergency.
Simulation creates space for the questions that arise: Who owns a particular function? What information does another agency need from the IC? How will resources communicate? At what point does a unified command structure become necessary? What priorities might another discipline be managing that the fire service does not immediately recognize?
These conversations help agencies understand each other’s operational priorities before the incident occurs. Equally important, introductions have already been made. There is tremendous value in arriving at a complex incident and recognizing the police, EMS, communications or emergency management representative standing beside you. Relationships and professional trust built during training can reduce some of the uncertainty that naturally accompanies large-scale incidents.
The role player: Developing more than the IC
Another critical component of the program is one that’s easy to overlook: the role player.
A realistic command simulation cannot function with only an IC. Someone must represent the companies responding to the call. Role players provide arrival reports, receive assignments, communicate benchmarks and react to changing conditions. They give the IC someone to command.
The benefit goes both directions. A role player might represent an engine company stretching a line during one scenario, a ladder company conducting a search during another and resources responding to a vehicle entrapment or MCI later in the session.
During a four-hour training period, one member may participate in several significant incidents. While the battalion chief practices command, role players practice radio discipline, arrival reports, CAN reports, tactical benchmarks, mayday communications and the terminology expected within the department’s command system. That expands the value of the program considerably, as the simulation is no longer exclusively chief officer training. It reinforces expectations throughout the officer corps and gives members across the department repetitions involving incidents they may rarely encounter during routine operations. In the end, the same language heard during simulation is the language we want heard on the fireground.
From a training event to an organizational system
One of the most important lessons from the evolution of Virginia Beach’s program is that command simulations should not be viewed as a single class. It is a system. Quarterly repetition allows the training cadre to revisit foundational concepts while continually introducing new risks, lessons learned and organizational priorities.
A mayday procedure can be introduced and reinforced through simulation. A unique building identified within the city can become the next scenario. Lessons from an actual incident or after-action review can be incorporated into a future training session. A change in an external agency’s capabilities can be discussed and practiced before it becomes relevant during an emergency.
The scenarios change, but the command framework remains consistent. Over time, that consistency has helped develop the incident command function throughout the officer corps. Chiefs understand the system they are expected to use. Company officers hear the same terminology and expectations. Role players reinforce those expectations. External partners become more familiar with how the department operates.
That is ultimately what the program is intended to accomplish. Under stress, the fireground is not the place to introduce a command system. It is the place to apply one that has already been practiced.
Replicating the model: Start with the people
Departments interested in developing a similar program do not need to begin with expensive technology or an elaborate simulation facility. They should begin with people.
First, build a cadre of individuals who are passionate about incident command and willing to continuously study it. A dedicated cadre creates consistency in how simulations are developed and facilitated and, most importantly, ensures that participants receive a consistent message.
Next, establish the command model you expect members to use. Simulations should reinforce the organizational system, not become the place where participants debate which command system they prefer. Command competence cannot be built during one annual exercise. A predictable schedule makes command development part of the organization’s normal training cycle.
Departments do not need Virginia Beach’s scenarios. They need their own. Photograph local buildings and incorporate target hazards. Use the occupancies and special events that keep your own chief officers awake at night. Modern simulation technology makes it increasingly practical to turn local risks into realistic training environments.
Bring your partners into the room. Police, EMS, dispatchers, emergency management and other organizations will see the incident differently. Training together provides an opportunity to understand those perspectives before an emergency forces those organizations together.
Finally, do not overlook the role player. Every member participating in the simulation is training. The firefighter, company officer or outside-agency representative answering the radio is developing along with the incident commander.
The next incident starts here
Virginia Beach’s command simulation program did not become what it is today overnight. It began with an opportunity to train in an acquired structure, a willingness to objectively evaluate our performance and recognition that greater consistency was needed in command practices. That led to outside education, a standardized command system, recurring simulations, increasingly realistic technology and greater involvement by partner agencies.
More than a decade later, the program continues to evolve. That may be the most important takeaway for other organizations: Do not wait until you can build the perfect simulation program.
Identify the problem. Establish expectations. Build a passionate cadre. Use the risks in your community. Bring partner agencies to the table. Create repetitions. Evaluate the results and continue improving.
We cannot control when the next complex incident will occur. We can control how many times our people — and our partners — have practiced managing one before it does.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dillon Dextradeur is a battalion chief with the Virginia Beach Fire Department, where he serves in the Fire Training Bureau overseeing recruit, incumbent, officer development and EMS training. His work focuses on command training, firefighter development and improving operational readiness through structured, experience-based training. Dextradeur also serves as a rescue team manager with FEMA Virginia Task Force 2 and regularly supports regional fire service training.
