Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue: Bishop Bosel Halls Familiarisation Tour

Fire crews need to know a building before they are called to it: where to get in, where the hydrant and the dry riser inlets are, what the alarm panels do, where people may be waiting in a refuge, and what hazards are close by. Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service commissioned us to build an operational familiarisation tour of Bishop Bosel Halls, a block of student accommodation off Infirmary Walk in Worcester, so firefighters can learn the site without a visit.

It is one of our bespoke 360 virtual tours, designed around how crews work rather than how a building is marketed: 9 locations from a drone overview to the lift lobby, every point of interest sorted into six colour-coded categories, the ground floor plan marked up, and an interface in HWFRS red, black and yellow. Below we walk through each feature and why it is there.

A site briefing first

The tour opens like a pre-incident briefing: the building name and access, the number of locations, the marked-up ground floor plan, and the key points a crew must know before they go in, from the nearby railway to how the main doors behave when the alarm sounds. One button begins the walkthrough.

From the air to the lift lobby

The walkthrough starts with a drone 360 of the site, so crews can see the approach, the access routes, the hydrant and the neighbouring buildings and railway in one view. From there it follows the route a crew would take: the main access and lobby for flats 1 to 8, the same for flats 9 to 17, then inside the block to a typical room, the kitchen and communal areas, the protected staircase and the lift lobby. A numbered route bar along the bottom, the floor plan, and arrows in the view all move between locations.

Six categories, one marker key

Every point is one of six types, each with its own shape and colour: firefighting equipment in red squares, evacuation and refuge in green, hazards in yellow triangles, fire safety systems in blue circles, isolation and utilities in orange diamonds, and building information in grey. A key along the top of the view counts each type in the current location and switches it on or off, so a crew can look only for hazards, or only for isolation points.

The detail, with a photo where it helps

Choosing a marker turns the view to it and opens the detail in the side panel: what it is, what to do, and which location it is in. Where a still photo makes something clearer, such as the black gate to the hydrant, it is shown with the detail. A “Next unviewed” button works through the points not yet read, and read points are ticked.

Inside, the same approach covers the fire alarm panel, the refuge alarm panel and its phone, the doors to the flat lobbies and the automatic main doors.

Every point in a list

The Points tab lists everything in the current location grouped by category, so the tour can be used as a checklist as well as a walkthrough. The Plan tab shows the marked-up ground floor plan and the full list of locations.

Built for crews on a tablet or a phone

The guide explains the controls and the marker key in one screen. The menu reopens the site briefing, copies a link to the current view and offers larger text, reduced motion and hidden marker labels. On a small screen the view sits above a panel that holds the plan, the points and the detail, so the tour works on a tablet in an appliance or a phone at the scene.

A template for other premises

The same structure, a briefing, a drone overview, a walked route and six categories of point, can be repeated for other high-risk or complex premises, so crews meet a familiar layout every time. If you need site familiarisation, induction or training tours for your own premises, take a look at our tours for training and onboarding or get in touch.

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