STRATEGY’s final full-scale exercise took place in the municipalities of Gualdo Tadino and Valfabbrica (Italy) from the 27th to the 31st of March 2023.
The aim of the exercise, which was coordinated and organised by the Italian National Fire Brigade (Vigili del Fuoco), was to test the twelve new European standards developed during the project to facilitate crisis management specifically for the planning, preparation and operational response phases.
Crisis management often involves a number of organisations and authorities, each with distinct organisational set ups and decision-making processes. These differences in infrastructure and approach can result in poor disaster response, for example, extended response times, incompatibility of technical systems, conflicting strategies and confusion regarding the chain of command.
The STRATEGY project aims to aims to bridge this gap by developing standardisation proposals across eight thematic streams in crisis management:
- Search and rescue
- Critical infrastructure protection
- Response planning
- Command and control
- Early warning and Rapid damage assessment
- Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosive threats (CBRN-E)
- Training
- Terminology/Symbology
Representatives of the 23 project partners from 16 European Union countries, the Prefecture of Perugia and the Civil Protection authorities of the Umbria Region participated in the exercise, which included five days of training with simulation of fires, post-flood relief, and evacuation from sports facilities.
The first two days mainly focused on technical discussions on pre-standardisation activities covering the current status and CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) timeline of the eight streams and round table discussion with experts, in preparation for the full-scale exercise.
During the full-scale exercise, the area of the municipal stadium of Valfabbrica was used to test the standard for the response to large-scale emergencies together with the standard for sharing alerts on social media. In Gualdo Tadino participants tested the standards for facilitating the exchange of emergency plans, for coordinating the response to forest fires, and for ensuring the continuity of the chain of custody within the context of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosive threats (CBRN-E).
The press was also present, and the event was featured in the national and local news: