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Aries
Product

What a session looks like.

Aries drills aren't demos of features. They are forty-five minutes of work that follow the rhythm of a real incident. Here's what that means end to end.

  1. Phase 01

    Setup

    00:00 – 00:05
    Structure library
    Staffing preset
    Pre-fire conditions
    Initial scenario

    Instructor builds the scene.

    Pick a structure, pick staffing, pick the initial scenario. Pre-fire conditions (smoke showing, contents load, occupants) are set from a short form. The instructor decides what the crews will see when they roll up.

    Scenario selection menu with the roster of firefighter units
  2. Phase 02

    Deployment

    00:05 – 00:15
    Full crew on shift
    Firefighter / IC roles
    Radio channels
    Conditions · actions · needs

    Crews arrive and size up.

    Players take firefighter-unit roles or the incident commander role. Size-up is the first real decision: identify the conditions, the actions, and the needs. Radio traffic begins on assigned channels. The IC gets the initial report and calls it.

    First-person view breaching a door with a pike pole
  3. Phase 03

    Command

    00:15 – 00:40
    Sector assignment
    Ventilation & collapse
    Mayday training
    Live instructor injects

    The incident commander runs the scene.

    Sectors are assigned, crews advance, the interior team calls the conditions they're seeing. Ventilation is operator-driven: opening windows, running positive-pressure fans, cutting the roof for vertical ventilation. Ceilings can collapse; fire can spread inside walls and ceilings out of sight. PAR checks happen on the clock. When a Mayday is called, it's on the IC to adapt. Instructors can inject events live.

    Interior fire with firefighter hand advancing through flames
  4. Phase 04

    Debrief

    00:40 – 00:50
    Transcribed chat log
    Radio discipline review
    Tactical review
    Trainer-led

    The chat log is the debrief.

    Every word said on the radio is transcribed in real time. The trainer walks the crew back through what happened by reading the log. Was the call sign right? Did anyone default to "hey you, it's me"? Who didn't get a PAR? Did the team actually do a secondary search? The debrief is a conversation about what was said and what was done.

    Transcribed log · session 042
    Illustration of a transcribed radio log: Engine 1 transmits without a call sign at 14:05 and is flagged by the trainer; command corrects the procedure; Engine 1 re-transmits with the call sign; command runs a PAR check at 14:58.
Full recording

Watch a real session, radio included.

Three and a half minutes from a training session at Allen FD. Player POV clips, the actual radio traffic between command and crews, and the decisions that made the call. This is how the tool is used on shift.

  • Runtime
    03:24
  • Source
    Allen FD, live drill
  • Audio
    Live radio traffic
  • Angles
    Command + player POV
REC Session · Allen FD · 03:24
Recorded training session with live radio audio. Unmute before playing.
Fidelity

What's under the hood.

The simulator is in Unity and has been in continuous development since 2022. These are the systems that matter on a fireground, modeled with enough fidelity to train the decisions that depend on them.

REC In-sim POV · muted
  • 01

    Full-crew multiplayer

    Officers, firefighters, and the IC all in the same simulation, coordinating over real radio channels.

  • 02

    Fire propagation

    Fire spreads through walls, ceilings, and floor assemblies. Ceilings can fail; fire hides behind finishes.

  • 03

    Ventilation

    Windows, positive-pressure fans, and vertical cuts through the roof. Interior tenability and visibility shift in response.

  • 04

    SCBA air management

    Air consumption tracks work rate. Low-air alarms trigger when they should.

  • 05

    Forcible entry

    Axe, chainsaw, and pike pole on doors, walls, and roofs.

  • 06

    Thermal imaging

    TIC POV with realistic heat signatures, for search and size-up training.

  • 07

    Hose & suppression

    Hose streams that knock fire down, with realistic interaction between water application and fire behavior.

  • 08

    Victim rescue

    Civilian AI with location variability. Search patterns matter.

  • 09

    Mayday training

    Trapped-firefighter scenarios, PAR under stress, IC response under duress.

  • 10

    Structure library

    Residential, mixed-use apartment, office, and warehouse templates ready out of the box.

  • 11

    Custom buildings

    We can model a specific building your department wants to train on. Schools, high-rises, hospitals, target hazards in your first-due. Bring floor plans.

  • 12

    Custom scenarios

    Need a specific incident type or response plan in the rotation? We build it into the library.

Deployment

Runs in your training room. Or from anywhere.

Aries runs on Windows PC with Xbox controllers and headsets. SmokeStack can stand up a simlab on commercial PC hardware at your facility, or skip the hardware entirely by streaming a full Windows workstation to any laptop via Shadow.tech.

Train with your real radios on the same channels you use on shift, or run remote drills using the in-sim virtual radios and proximity chat.

Platform
Windows 10 / 11
Input
Xbox controller + headset
Hosting
On-prem simlab or Shadow.tech cloud
Radios
Real hardware or in-sim virtual
Players
Up to 15 concurrent
Support
Direct from SmokeStack

Set up a virtual meeting and we'll talk about what your department is trying to train for.

Thirty minutes on a video call. We'll walk through how Aries works, what it would take to stand it up at your department, and whether it's the right fit.

Request a demo