Full-scale Emergency Exercise

About this project

The City of Burnaby is initiating a multi-year emergency preparedness training and exercise program that will culminate with a large multi-agency full-scale emergency exercise. 

The goal of the full-scale exercise is to test the City’s overall emergency preparedness, validate emergency plans, procedures, equipment, facilities and training, confirm inter-agency coordination, cooperation, and communications and demonstrate the City’s emergency response and recovery capabilities and capacities to Burnaby residents, businesses and visitors.

What is a full-scale emergency exercise?

A full-scale emergency exercise models a real event as closely as possible. It is a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional, multi-discipline exercise designed to evaluate the operational capability of interdependent emergency management systems. Full-scale exercises simulate the high stress environments that unfold during actual response conditions. The exercise tests incident site management and information sharing from multiple Incident Command Posts, site support coordination and interagency cooperation at the City’s Emergency Operations Centre, public notification, information and communications, and potential simulation of provincial and federal support to the local emergency response and recovery activities.

The multi-year training and exercise program—with the capstone being the full-scale emergency exercise—is a significant undertaking, which will involve substantial planning and coordination across multiple City departments, engagement of First Nation Host Communities, neighbouring municipalities, government and regulatory agencies, non-government stakeholders and community response partners. 

Why do a full-scale exercise? 

Preparing for and conducting a full-scale emergency exercise is one part of the City’s emergency management program and its ongoing commitment to public safety. The exercise complements significant investments the City has already made to enhance our emergency response capacities and capabilities, including:

• Replacing Fire Station 4 with a new station in northeast Burnaby on Greystone Drive. 
• Adding a new fire station, Fire Station 8, on Burnaby Mountain on University Drive between Nelson Way and Tower Road, slated to open in 2024.
• Equipping Fire Stations 4 and 8 with specialized wildfire firefighting equipment and personnel, such as ATVs and large-scale deployable sprinkler systems.
• Investing in a public alerting system, Alertable, which is used by the City to issue notifications to subscribers about emergencies impacting Burnaby and information about evacuation orders, where to go for support during an emergency and additional information about potential threats to public safety.
  • Visit Burnaby.ca/Alertable to sign up.
• Assessing and identifying potential routes, assembly areas, and places of respite should the evacuation of an area be necessary.
• Investing in Emergency Support Services (ESS) equipment, supplies and ESS responder training to sustain response capacity in our growing community.
• Advancing City personnel training in emergency management systems including the incident command system, emergency support services, damage assessment, and emergency operations centre.

A full-scale emergency exercise provides the City, First Nation Host Communities, stakeholder agencies and community response partners with the opportunity to train their personnel and to review emergency plans, integrate and align response strategies with other response agencies, find opportunities for cooperation and collaboration between all parties, and review and adjust plans and procedures to adopt current emergency management best practice.

It is also an excellent opportunity for members of the public to review their own personal emergency preparedness and create or update their household and neighbourhood emergency plans and supplies. The City has many resources to help you.

Who is involved?

Multiple agencies and partners in our all-of-society approach to emergency preparedness, response and recovery will be involved with the training and exercise program. The City will be engaging in meaningful consultation and cooperation with səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwitkwetlem First Nation), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation). 

Invitations for participation will be sent to Simon Fraser University, School District 41, Fraser Health Authority, First Nations Health Authority, City of Coquitlam, City of New Westminster, District of North Vancouver, Metro Vancouver Regional District, TransLink, Trans Mountain Corporation, various ministries of the Province of BC and regulators and response agencies of the Government of Canada, among others. 

When is the full-scale exercise happening? 

We anticipate the exercise will occur in 2027.

What is happening now?

The City is developing the multi-year strategy and initiating work with participatory agencies. This involves defining training and smaller functional exercise timelines and milestones, identifying stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and establishing the funding, framework and schedule for planning and conducting the full-scale emergency exercise.

The City is also preparing information for Burnaby residents, in particular those who live at or near Burnaby Mountain, to make them aware of the exercise and its purpose, share opportunities for them to be involved in the exercise, and share information on ways they can enhance their household and neighbourhood emergency preparedness. 

Updates will be provided as the planning progresses.