November 4, 2013
Anyone who noticed the flashing emergency lights and fire engines at Kingaroy Airport this evening shouldn’t be alarmed … it wasn’t an aviation emergency or plane crash.
But there was a “fire” in a hangar, or at least that was the scenario that local emergency services personnel were presented with in a mock disaster exercise at the airport.
Two “workers” doing maintenance were trapped in a smoke-filled hangar and had to be rescued.
They had suffered smoke inhalation and other injuries.
QFRS Area Commander Mark Long said the exercise was designed to test the airport’s Emergency Plan.
Firefighters had to enter the hangar, locate the workers and remove them so they could receive treatment before being “taken” to hospital.
The firefighters then had to return to the shed to locate the source of the fire.
Police, SES volunteers, the Queensland Ambulance Service and Kingaroy Airport manager Jim Dunn also took part in the exercise.
