South Yorkshire’s fire crews have taken part in a realistic training exercise to test their response in the event of a major incident.

The exercise took place at the Fly DSA Arena in Sheffield with 10 fire crews from Parkway, Elm Lane, Central, Rotherham, Birley Moor, Tankersley and Thorne fire stations last week.  It tested South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s operational response to a chemical incident.

The scenario involved a number of people being exposed to a chemical. The exercise included around 40 volunteers from the fire and police service’s Prince’s Trust Team Programme and students from the public services course at Barnsley College who all acted as casualties.

Station Manager Nicholas Abbott, said: “Our firefighters are ready to respond to a huge number of different incident types, from fires to road traffic collisions. We issue lots of guidance to our crews about the different sorts of scenarios they might come across in the line of duty, but really the best way of preparing our response is to test it out for real.

“We’re extremely grateful to Fly DSA Arena for making the exercise as realistic as possible and providing some vital technical input on the day.

This recent exercise formed part of an ongoing aim at South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue to continually improve emergency response procedures to incidents that aren’t just fires.