An incident simulation system supports an incident exercise in a virtual environment. The incident simulation system accesses a simulation plan defining an incident within a theater of operation. The incident simulation system simulates the incident exercise by displaying, to a participant in the incident exercise, images representing what the participant would see within the theater of operation as the participant moves within the theater of operation. The incident simulation system further simulates the incident by generating incident data indicating effects of the incident at target locations and at target times as the participant moves within the theater of operation. The incident simulation system further simulates the incident by displaying to the participant images representing the user experience that a detector would provide based on the generated incident data.