In January 2009 the Northern Division of Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service organised some live training and exercise sessions for their divisional retained fire-fighters and invited Lancaster City Council's Emergency Incident Officers to take part.
The first event, on 10th January, was Exercise Broadsword, based on a chemical spillage at the SRM reprocessing site at Heysham. Mark Bartlett and John Toder attended as Duty Emergency Incident Officers and worked through the various issues that would arise in incidents of this nature. These include, evacuation of nearby residents, advice to clear areas such as the nearby golf course, environmental protection issues and anything else where the Council may be expected to assist.
The following weekend Andre Hunt and Nick Howard took part in Exercise Fassbinder, dealing with another simulated chemical incident on the Lansil industrial estate in Lancaster. Nick is pictured reporting to the Fire Service's mobile command unit from where, through liaison with the Fire Incident Officer, the appropriate response to the incident could be determined.
Both these simulated incidents involved injured casualties and were dealt with using Operation Merlin, a Lancashire-wide scheme to ensure an appropriate multi-agency response to any incident involving hazardous substances. All four officers felt the exercises were a useful refresher and reminder of the procedures to be adopted when working with the blue light services at incidents.
Mark Bartlett, Civil Contingencies Officer, said "We were grateful to Station Manager Alan Walker for inviting the Council to participate in these two exercises and hope that we will be able to take part in similar events in the future so that all the Council Emergency Incident Officers have this invaluable opportunity to experience live working alongside fire-fighters and their senior managers in a safe environment".
Return to News