Fire Boss is an interactive game where you pit your skills against a wildfire in the Green Acres State Forest. As the 'Fire Boss' , every fire season you prepare to protect the Green Acres State Forest from dangerous wildfire. You ensure that the firefighters and firefighting equipment are ready for the summer. When a fire report comes in, you have to decide the best place to send your firefighting team to help control the fire as quickly as possible.
In Victorian parks and forests, dry firefighting is used to fight fires, due to lack of water from a reliable source (ie. water hydrant). Dry firefighting is where the fire is starved of fuel by clearing a line ahead of the fire using hand tools or bulldozers. If water is used, it comes from dams or creeks.
Fire Boss is a game that will test your skill in putting out a wildfire, with two difficulty levels to choose from. You'll need to use your highly trained forest firefighters, bulldozers, tanker crews and helicopter support to put the fire out
You can also download Fire Boss so that it can be played off-line. To download, click on the Game icon below and save it to your local computer.
(Flash file 3.3 Mb)
The game may take a while to download. If you have any problems, please contact the Customer Service Centre on 136 186 or email customer.service@dse.vic.gov.au. customer.service@dse.vic.gov.au
Note that the Fireboss game is in the Flash format. If you do not have the Flash Player, you can download a free copy from the Adobe Flash Player website.
Game Information and Instructions
Instructions are also available with the game, but below are some pointers and hints to improve your understanding of how the game works.
The Fire Boss screen is filled with a large scale view of the State Forest, while along the right-hand side are several pop-up windows. The top popup-window is the 'MiniMap', which shows an overview of the whole 'world'. It shows where the fire is (in red and black), where your resources are (in blue) and where your control lines are (as brown lines).
Green Acres State Forest is a large area that can't be seen all at once. You can navigate around the game by two methods.
Moving the World by scrolling - Press the mouse button and hold it down. To stop scrolling simply release the mouse button.
Moving the World using the MiniMap - At any time you can click on a section of the MiniMap and jump to look at that bit of the world.
A fire control line is a path of cleared ground with nothing left to burn, and is created by bulldozers and crews. Control lines must be constructed with as few small gaps as possible, so that the fire cannot get through. To use a bulldozer or crew to create a control line, click on it and a Vehicle pop-up menu will appear on the right hand side. The dozer or crew will be highlighted by a blue square. To tell the dozer or crew where to go, click on the State Forest and "waypoints" will be shown with connecting lines. Once you have created the waypoints, you can press either the "Move" button to tell the resource to follow the waypoint path or the "Bulldoze" or "Rakehoe" button for a control line to be constructed along the waypoint. To discard the waypoints, press "Stop".
Helicopters are used for "waterbombing" the fire, as well as watching it from air. You will be given a helicopter some time after the start of the fire. You can request to use it by clicking on the "Helicopter" pop-up menu and then on the "Waterbomb" button. Click on the State Forest where you want the helicopter to start dropping water. When you do this a 'target' will appear and you will be asked where you want the helicopter to stop dropping water. To do this, click on one of the squares in the 'target' and the helicopter will fly in an waterbomb between the two points you selected.
Putting out the middle of the fire will not stop the fire from spreading, so aim for the edge.
