Provo City

Press Releases


Hazmat Drill in Provo

  
On November 17, 2009, a joint drill was conducted with Provo, Orem, Utah County and Utah’s Civil Support Team. The drill was located at 175 North Freedom Blvd at the old central square building.
 
Eighty participants from Provo Fire & Rescue, Provo Police Dispatch, Emergency Operations Manager, Orem Fire, Utah County Fire, Red Cross, and Utah's Civil Support team were involved in the drill.  
 
The purpose of this drill was to bring agencies together to work through a haz mat situation, mitigate the problem with safety for our crews and community residents as a priority, and finally debrief to evaluate areas where service can be improved.
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The scenario was as follows:
 
Construction workers were remodeling the theater when they all became sick and dizzy. Provo EMS was called at 9:05 a.m., made patient contact and it was determined that the workers had been exposed and contaminated with an unknown agent. It was also reported by workers that a fruity smell was present at the scene.
 
Provo Fire & Rescue requested that hazmat incident response be started. Nine civilians and three firefighters were exposed, and required them to go through decontamination. The civilians were transported to Orem Community Hospital for evaluation. At this time, the unknown agent is being investigated by the Hazmat and Civil Support Team. Once that was determined, the teams mitigated the problem.
 
Provo Fire & Rescue would like to thank William & Elsie Bancroft, Sandra Poch, and the owner's group at Central Square for letting us use their building. We would also like to thank "Army North" from San Antonio Texas for evaluating the drill.