Rural fire exercise designed to train 70 staff for real emergency

Taking part in a rural fire exercise (from right) Queenstown Lakes District Council Geographic Information System manager Ryan Clements, of Queenstown, Central Otago District Council GIS manager Tony Hollows and QLDC forecaster Brianna O’Brien, talking to Southern Rural Fire District forest supervisor Trevor Tidey, of Drummond (at left).

Department of Conservation (DOC) Otago conservancy communications officer John Gordon, of Dunedin, said a total of 70 people from seven fire authorities from as far afield as Oamaru and Southland, including Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes District Councils and DOC staff, took part in the exercise last Thursday.

Forestry and St John ambulance representatives also attended the training day.

‘‘This is to integrate all the different authorities around the region,'' Mr Gordon said.

‘‘If there was a major incident, this is the sort of thing that would happen.''

Mr Gordon, the media liaison person for the exercise, was based in the incident control room, which was one of four designated areas for crew members comprising Geographic Information System (GIS), air operations and resource and logistics.

A model of the site where the emergency fire operation took place was used for the exercise.

Updates on the state of the fire took place every half-hour taking in to account weather predictions and any vegetation the fire would encounter, to put in place the resources needed.

During the mock incident, areas had to be evacuated, road blocks were put up and one ‘‘incident'' included a ‘‘scare about explosives''.

‘‘Things like that occurred throughout the day.''

A similar training exercise was held annually, he said.

‘‘It's much easier, if there's a real incident of this magnitude, that people know who they are dealing with.''