MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho -- Mountain Home Air Force Base conducted a base-wide emergency management exercise March 1 here.

Exercise planners developed a complex scenario that would test how different agencies would respond to a variety of simulated emergencies.

“Biggest key items were being able to gross decontaminate victims within a hot zone,” said Daniel Hawkins, 366th Fighter Wing Fire Department assistant chief of operations. “Identify and try and figure out what (simulated) unknown chemical was used during an attack.”

The exercise focused around a simulated mass casualty event and it was up to a team of first responders and various designated personnel to evacuate victims and contain the situation.

“We came up on an unknown,” Hawkins said. “Once we were able to remove those victims we got the robot in and assessed and identified that there was a secondary explosive device.”

This was an exercise to test everyone’s readiness and abilities to work in a large scale incident.

“We had some great partnerships with emergency management and bioenvironmental,” said Master Sgt. Sean Katz 366th FW Fire Department assistant chief of health and safety. “I think it was executed on the spot.”