Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department
4100 Chain Bridge Rd, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Phone: 703-246-3801, TTY: 711 and Fax:703-385-1687
Duty PIO (Weekends/After-hours): 703-280-0694
Media Information Line: 703-324-3000
Email: fire-rescue.Pa-LSE@fairfaxcounty.gov
Website: www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fire

4/10/2008

Virginia Task Force 1 Conducts Disaster Training Exercise

Virginia Task Force 1 (VATF1) will conduct a training operational readiness exercise, from noon, Monday, April 28, 2008, through noon, Wednesday, April 30, 2008, at the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Academy, 4600 West Ox Road, Fairfax, Virginia. The exercise begins with mobilization, simulates a deployment overseas assisting with the rescue of people in the aftermath of an earthquake, and ends in demobilization.

The planned exercise will be conducted in "real time," at various sites throughout the county in a demanding around-the-clock training scenario with members facing challenging situations requiring problem-solving skills. Team members will perform reconnaissance, victim rescue, concrete breaching, patient medical care, K9 search, and hazardous materials recognition and mitigation.

Using a diverse group of professional international and domestic evaluators, the training exercise provides a means to objectively evaluate task force disaster response capacity and capability to an overseas disaster site. The exercise is a joint collaboration of Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Virginia Task Force 1 has deployed throughout the world since 1986 responding to natural and man-made disasters, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, earthquakes in Turkey, Taiwan, and Kenya in 1999, terrorism at The Pentagon in 2001, the Iranian earthquake in 2003, and numerous other disasters.

Media representatives are cordially invited to attend. For more information on Virginia Task Force 1, visit www.vatfl.org.

For more information, call Daniel L. Schmidt or Lieutenant Raúl G. Castillo, Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, 703-246-3801 and TTY 711. Fairfax County is committed to nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in all county programs, services and activities. Reasonable accommodations will be provided upon request.