Building chemistry during CBRN exercise

Photo By Staff Sgt. Anthony Nin Leclerec | U.S. Air Force Airmen from the 633rd Civil Engineer Squadron decontaminate an Airman from the 633rd Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal during an active chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) response training at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, March 29, 2019. For this training, the 633rd CES Fire Department, the 633rd CES explosive ordnance disposal, the 192nd Wing emergency management flight and the 633rd Aerospace Medicine Squadron bioenvironmental engineering flight responded to a chemical munition threat. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Anthony Nin Leclerec)  

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VA, UNITED STATES

04.03.2019

Story by Senior Airman Anthony Nin Leclerec 

Joint Base Langley-Eustis

The 633rd Civil Engineer Squadron conducted an active chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response training at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, March 29, 2019.

“The motivation to do this is that we’re constantly integrating with our on-base partners and response agencies,” said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Joshua Fredrick, 633rd CES NCO in charge of readiness emergency management. “We want to build these partnerships so when there is a real-world response it’s not the first time we’re meeting each other and we understand our response protocols.”

For this training, the 633rd CES Fire Department arrived on the scene and established incident command in response to a simulated chemical munition. While securing the scene, they called the 633rd CES explosive ordnance disposal, the 192nd Wing emergency management flight and the 633rd Aerospace Medicine Squadron bioenvironmental engineering flight.

While waiting for their mission partners to arrive on scene, firefighters set up a special zone to decontaminate the victims of the simulated blister agent. This allowed the now decontaminated victims to receive medical attention.

When EOD arrives on the scene, their job is to set up a safe entry area as well as a way to decontaminate themselves within said area if they come in contact with the blister agent. The focus is getting to the ordnance item and taking the proper actions to make the zone safe from the ordnance.

“Operations like these are huge for EOD mission readiness, especially in the state or base side aspect of it,” said Staff Sgt. Richard Emery, 633rd CES EOD team leader. “It’s incredibly valuable to work with our mission partners on the scene. We do a lot of in house training ourselves for these sort of things, but when you put them on a bigger scale like this, working with everybody adds a few more hiccups.”

According to Emery, the exercise gives mission partners the opportunity to coordinate with real-time response protocols and see where deficiencies in communication lie. This makes them ready and more proficient while responding to a real-world scenario.

“After EOD has saved the ordnance, the emergency management and bioenvironmental engineering flights will go out and do what we call presumptive identification of the substance,” Fredrick said. “For the training, we just want to see that they can go through the procedures like using the detection equipment properly, do air monitoring, sampling and things like that.”

According to Fredrick, hazards must be identified accurately in order to give senior leaders situational awareness for proper decision making while mitigating the hazards on the scene.

“We try to do a quarterly exercise, each addressing different threats specific to our proficiency training plan,” Fredrick said. “Our goal is to strengthen the effectiveness of our response partnership but overall our mission is to protect JBLE personnel and assets by mitigating the hazards presented by physical threats on and off the installation.”

• Date Taken: 04.03.2019
• Date Posted: 09.11.2019 14:03
• Story ID: 339722
• Location: JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, VA, US