After the success of the emergency response exercise at the Globe in 2019, which took place in collaboration with the emergency services of CERN’s Host States, the CERN Fire and Rescue service is organising another exercise – on 13 November, at Point 5 of the LHC. This large-scale exercise was originally planned for 2020 but was postponed because of the health crisis. Its purpose is to enhance interoperability and communication between the various emergency response teams and to improve knowledge and understanding of their respective working methods when implementing a multinational response to a major incident.

As part of the exercise, several sub-scenarios will be staged at Point 5 – on the surface, in the CMS technical cavern and in the HiLumi underground areas. Volunteers from the CERN community will be needed to make the exercise a success. They will be assigned to teams with specific tasks, according to their skillset. If you match one of the profiles outlined below and you would like to volunteer to take part in the exercise, you can sign up on the Indico page, specifying which team you would like to join and your profile. Please bear in mind that, depending on requirements, not all applicants may be chosen.  

Four categories of volunteer have been identified:

• Safety personnel: You know CERN’s infrastructure well, are capable of identifying dangerous situations and know how to handle them by guiding people to safety. Ideally, your everyday work is in safety and you are accredited to work underground.

• Technical correspondents: You are very familiar with CERN’s activities and in particular those of CMS. As part of the exercise, you must be able to respond in French to the questions asked by the partner emergency services about the site – whether about the surface facilities or the underground installations.

• Actors: You play the role of visitors and/or the injured. No particular skills are required, but some visitors will need to be accredited to go down into the CMS and HiLumi technical cavern.

• Exercise supervisors: You are capable of supervising, coordinating, guiding, speeding up and slowing down the various sub-scenarios under the supervision of the exercise leader. You are also accredited to go down into the CMS and HiLumi technical cavern.

Apply to take part via Indico by 3 November.