Partners put plan to practice in a multi-agency training exercise

21/04/2026

Colleagues from across the Service came together to train alongside partner agencies with the help of a local business.

Firefighters from Soham, Littleport and Sutton, alongside two crews from Newmarket in Suffolk, took part in a training exercise at H.W. Coates last week alongside colleagues from resilience, operational support and training center teams.

The exercise was based on a realistic scenario involving a fire at an industrial site, where flammable materials are stored, with people believed to be inside the building. Police, ambulance and local authority partners also took part helping to recreate the pressures and challenges of a real major incident.

The training didn’t stop with the live exercise however. A follow up tabletop exercise was held so teams could practice the behind the scenes work that takes place during a large or complex incident. While firefighters respond at the scene, many other colleagues work in roles such as coordination, communication and recovery to ensure the service continues to operate effectively, coordinate with any other emergency services or partner agencies involved and that the public is kept safe and informed.

This tabletop exercise allowed partner agencies, including police, ambulance and local authorities, to work through how they would manage their responsibilities if this kind of incident really happened.

Group Commander Ben Fawcitt, Head of Resilience, said: “Firstly I would like to thank all those that took part in and organised the two exercises, as well as H.W. Coates for the use of their site. This was a great opportunity for not only crews to train in a different environment but also for our resilience, operational support and communication teams to practice how they would respond to an incident of this type and scale.

“We regularly work alongside partner agencies so training together helps us better understand each other’s roles and work together more effectively. It was great to see people from different partner agencies across the county come together to take part in both exercises”

All of the Cambridgeshire firefighters that attended the live exercise were from on-call fire stations. These are people that respond to emergencies around their other work or life commitments. In Cambridgeshire, 20 out of our 27 fire stations are solely crewed by on-call firefighters. We are actively recruiting more on-call firefighters at fire stations across they county, to find out more visit the careers section of our website.