Calif. Incident Response Event Trains First Responders

Sept. 09—An unknown chemical agent was discovered Saturday afternoon inside a trash can aboard one of the ferries docked at Mare Island.

Wearing fully encapsulated protection suits, three members of the Santa Clara Fire Department boarded the ferry to investigate.

After a thorough search of the vessel, the team ultimately discovered that the chemical agent was harmless—thankfully.

This mock scenario was just one of many Saturday as firefighters, and hazardous materials crews from throughout the state came to participate in regional preparedness exercises.

The city of Vallejo hosted the Red Command part of Urban Shield 2018—an annual weekend event with numerous scenarios meant to enhance the abilities of first responders.

"Most of these departments don't work together, and the point is when the big one hits, whatever it is, you will have had the opportunity to work together," said John Healy, site captain of the high-angle rescue scenario on the south part of the island. "This is a great teaching opportunity."

Teams from Vacaville and El Cerrito fire departments worked together Saturday morning to bring down two "victims" from a multi-story crane.

Taking a quick break from supervising the exercise, Healy explained that the scenario centered around a terrorist attempting to seize the crane by shooting the operator with the terrorist himself being shot, higher on the crane, by authorities.

The fire crews had to work together in getting both persons, played by two dummy props, down safely within the 3-hour time frame, Healy explained.

"The grading is based on command structure (of the teams), safety, how efficient they are, communication," he said.

Healy further said the idea is not meant to embarrass the teams, should they not score well, but to ensure they can work on items they may need to improve in case of a real emergency.

Healy did admit there is one way for the teams to automatically fail the exercise.

"If you drop a person," he said smiling.

Additional fire scenarios included mock detection of radioactive materials in a building, and car crashes, among others.

The overall Urban Shield training exercise is being hosted by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office at the county's Regional Training Center Range Facility. Training exercises range from bomb disposal, use of Special Weapons and Tactics teams, and medical scenarios.

Vallejo spokeswoman Joanna Altman said that since the city doesn't have a specialized urban search and rescue team, it's nice that nearby towns are training for scenarios which could happen in Vallejo.