Fire and rescue training exercise planned on campus

A major emergency services training exercise is planned at the AMS Tower on our Whiteknights campus on the evening of Monday 16 September.

The exercise will be led by Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service and take place between 19:00 and 21:00 that evening.

We have been allowing the Fire Service to use the AMS tower for training drills for a more than a year as the currently vacant high-rise building is an ideal setting for practising rescues and evacuations. This exercise is the service’s main ‘live’ annual training exercise, however, and will be on a bigger scale.

What will be on site?

On site on the evening will be around 10 fire trucks, plus ambulances and police cars, and around 50 actors in make-up playing casualties.

A cordon will be in place around the AMS Tower. There will be lighting, some flashing lights (but no sirens) and ladders. Synthetic, environmentally friendly smoke will be used in the building to simulate a fire.

The crews and vehicles will be based in Car Park 2, and the area around the AMS Tower is likely to be very busy. Please do not be alarmed if you see activity or hear noise in the area on that evening.

There will be Fire and Rescue officers and members of the University’s Security team on site to support the exercise and explain to anyone passing by what is going on.

The exercise will also be a useful opportunity to test our own emergency procedures, such as building role calls, and highlight any potential issues that could impact real evacuations in the future.

If you have any concerns about this exercise, please contact Dave Sharp, Fire Safety Advisor.