Luke conducts CBRNE exercise

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Devante Williams
  • 56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  Luke Air Force Base conducted a Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear High-Yield Explosives exercise Nov. 5. The simulated scenario involved a terrorist causing an explosion during the National Football League Pro Bowl practice event and role players acting as if they were hurt by the blast.

In this exercise, the CBRNE dangers included radiological materials and explosives. The particular threat during this exercise was simulated radiation from a radiological dispersal device, or more commonly known as a dirty bomb.

"The purpose of the exercise is for Luke AFB to practice emergency management skills," said Maj. Justin Ramey, 56th Fighter Wing director of inspections. "The goal is to have people get some useful training and practice out of the exercise and demonstrate their capabilities to respond to the emergency situation."

The exercise involved responding to potential emergencies and disasters based on what could happen if the event was real and not just an exercise.

"It helps us develop and implement programs aimed toward reducing the impact of events like this on the installation," Ramey said. "It also prescribes procedures required to deal with consequences of actual events and to recover from those actions."

The units that played important roles during the exercise were firefighters, medical and explosive ordnance disposal Airmen.

"The entire base is potentially involved in some way, shape or form, either by responding to the emergency situation or by taking individual actions within their work areas based on the effects of the exercise events," Ramey said. "We utilized 40 role players from the wing to play the roles of victims as well as the attacker and also incorporated off-base partners from local hospitals and fire departments."

The wing conducts exercises on a quarterly basis to test the ability to react to real-world emergencies.

It also gives nonresponders at Luke the opportunity to learn the skills needed to test how they should react to an emergency.

"Exercises are always a challenge due to the need to simulate certain things that we can't actually do," Ramey said. "This can make the response actions challenging, but we do our best to keep things as realistic as possible.  Improving the ways we simulate things to make the exercise more real is always something we look at improving."