Only months after Britain’s biggest quake for generations centred on Market Rasen, experts from across the nations are in the area today and during the week on an ‘Invaluable’ earthquake exercise


An exercise organised by Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue - based in Louth, Scampton, Tetney and othger areas - is testing the response of the UK’s International Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Team to a major incident such as an earthquake. The exercise is being run in real time and will take place from 8 October until 10 October.


During the exercise there will be several search and rescue helicopters present, together with a convoy of vehicles of French search and rescue specialists. The convoy of vehicles and equipment arrived at Hull docks at 8.30am today and moved to a base camp at RAF Scampton.


The exercise scenario is that of a major earthquake with the epicentre in Lincoln, with other incidents located in the Grantham, Tetney and Louth areas, that will run simultaneously.


The French and UK USAR teams will be given the opportunity to work closely together and learn from each other as to how they approach incidents such at this. There will be the chance to work with the latest equipment as well as showing how, in a major incident, all agencies work together and with the host ‘Government’.


The purpose of the exercise is to test the resilience of the International USAR teams. It will examine how teams deploy to an area, command and control, and distribute available resources, teams and equipment to places of most need. The teams will be using rope rescue techniques, search and rescue dogs Holly and Rooney, SAR helicopters, and a full range of heavy rescue equipment, techniques and vehicles.


Rasen born firefighter and operations manager Neil Fritzsche said: “Exercises such as this are invaluable for us to work closely with our counterparts from other countries. It gives us the opportunity to trial new ways of working and look at how we can improve our response to incidents such as this.”


“It also tests our resilience and goes some way to preparing the teams for real life situations such as the Pakistan Earthquake in 2005, where teams worked 18 hour shifts including Holly the dog and her handler Neil Woodmansey who worked up to 20 hour shifts to search for people in the rubble.”




Neil Fritzsche, Operations Manager is one of the original personnel of LFR who set up the country’s first combined fire service response to disasters overseas.