What's new in Fire Studio 7 compared to version 5 or 6?
A completely new software engine and graphics system
FS7 runs on a rebuilt engine rather than an update to the old one. In practice, that means:
Faster performance across all platforms
Increased stability (fewer crashes and hangs during simulation building)
Smoother animations
Much more realistic fire
Fire itself got a significant upgrade in FS7 — it's the most realistic fire Digital Combustion had produced at the time, and it added control that older versions didn't have:
Ability to show specific parts of a structure burning, rather than only whole-structure fire effects
Horizontal, vertical, and angled beams and posts
Window fires with both front and side views
Right-angle wood structure components
Smaller, lighter default animation layers
All of the default animation layers were re-optimized for size and performance in FS7. If you compare a similar scene built in FS5/FS6 versus FS7, expect:
A noticeably smaller simulation file size
Less strain on your computer's hardware while building and playing back simulations
New layers for building other types of incidents
FS7 isn't just about fire — it added layers aimed at simulating a wider range of incident types, which is one of the more common reasons customers upgrade:
Animated victims
New smoke animation, including a long building smoke column
A strobe light layer for interior alarm effects
Additional explosion effects
Electrical spark effects
New professional graphics layers
A set of graphics layers was added for labeling and annotating scenes, useful for training and incident diagrams:
Alpha, Bravo, Delta, Charlie 3D text (plus A, B, C, D lettering)
Vegetation — bushes and trees
Circles and arrows
Power lines
Triage tags, and more
New: Publish Simulation option
FS7 introduced a Publish option for finished simulations:
Exports a simulation to a single file instead of the two files earlier versions required
Publishing locks the simulation — once published, it can no longer be edited
This is meant for sharing or archiving a finished simulation, not for a work-in-progress file you still plan to edit. Keep an unpublished, editable copy if you think you'll need to make changes later.
Should I upgrade from FS5 or FS6?
If you build training scenarios involving anything beyond basic single-structure fires — multi-casualty incidents, night operations with strobes, vegetation fires, or scenes that need labeled diagrams — FS7's new layers and the smaller file sizes are the most noticeable improvements. If you mainly build simple structure fires, the rebuilt engine's stability and performance gains are still worth having, but the visual difference will be less dramatic than the new-layer list above suggests.
This article summarizes the original Fire Studio 7 release notes. It doesn't cover incremental updates released after FS7's initial launch — check your version number under Help > About if you want to confirm exactly which build you're running.