A successful emergency exercise will be followed by further initiatives to keep the Bragg Creek area in a state of readiness should disaster strike.

Randy Smith, director of disaster services and fire chief for Rocky View County (RVC),  says the next steps for the Bragg Creek area include completing an evacuation plan and helping to encourage the development of volunteer groups to aid with coordinating the community in the event of an emergency..

The county tested its emergency response plan for the community on Apr. 29 in an multi-jurisdiction, multi-agency exercise that involved about 80 people and 10 agencies. They are the same organizations who would be called upon should a real emergency occur.

"The teams worked extremely well," he says. "It was a great learning experience."

"We had a chance to actually implement and work through a fairly large situation and now we'll wait for the report to come back. We're collecting the data from all 10 agencies and we'll come with an after action report and improve our plan, as always."

An emergency operation centre (EOC) was established at the Bragg Creek Community Centre and crews were deployed from there to respond to the Wild Rose Estates to ready the area for the threat of a wildfire heading towards West Bragg Creek.

Among the many agencies participating was the Cochrane Fire Service. Fire chief David Humphrey served as one of the.evaluators for the exercise, two firefighters manned a pumper and one person was assigned to the EOC.

"We do this often so we can strengthen our municipal ties between places like the Town of Cochrane and Rocky View County and the Town of Cochrane and the Redwood Meadows townsite," Humphrey explains. "We work collectively to provide mutual aid.".

The findings of the exercise will not only benefit RVC, they could be utilized by Cochrane in its planning.

"For us personally, we can take those same learnings and findings and apply them to our emergency plan."

Gregg Schaalje, of the Tsuu T'ina Nation Fire Dept.,was the evaluator assigned to the Wild Rose Estate portion of the exercise and says what was being practiced stems from a very plausible scenario.

"This is very much a real situation that could happen if there was a wildfire situation in this area," says Schaalje. "We could be working within Bragg Creek community and then have an onsite crew working out here with multi-jurisdictions, multi-agencies."

He sees nothing but good coming from the exercise.

"The only way we can get better is by watching and learning from our mistakes. If we can learn something better today for when there's an actual fire we can better protect the citizens of our communities tomorrow."

The Alberta First Responder Radio Communications System (AFRRCS) was brought in for the exercise and included a mobile repeater and 25 radios. It's something that has been in the works for years and was utilized during last summer's fires in Fort McMurray.

"It was an opportunity for them to come and exercise with us and for responders in this area to see and touch and use the AFRRCS system and to look at whether they are going to migrate over to the system or use their old systems or both," explains Smith.

RVC has put many tools into place to respond to emergencies in the Bragg Creek area, including a strategic plan for fires,  an all-hazards emergency plan and a response guide for responders.