A PARTLY demolished section of the Nestle factory in York doubled up as a disaster area in a valuable training exercise for Yorkshire firefighters.

More than a hundred fire and rescue staff from Yorkshire and Humberside converged on the Wigginton Road site on Saturday for training in handling a major disaster and its aftermath – in this case a supposed explosion which left people trapped in rubble contaminated with asbestos.

Selby station manager Mark Upton said: “This is something that may happen in real life and you need to be able to train for it. We have a fantastic opportunity here thanks to Nestle – it’s priceless.

“We have approximately 20 casualties made up of volunteers from our Whole Time training course and retained firefighters from Huntington.”

Trained rescue dogs and specialist vehicles and equipment were also brought to the scene including an fire service Incident Response Unit, capable of decontaminating large numbers of casualties.

“This is something we try to do as regularly as possible but it’s difficult getting all the forces together in one place, said Mr Upton.

“This is a fantastic site because it’s in the middle of being demolished and is perfect.”

The exercise carried on throughout Saturday and made a spectacular sight for those walking past the famous factory.

Group manager Dave McCabe of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said: “Whilst we do not wish to cause alarm to local residents or passers-by, training for a major event like this is an extremely important part of the job we do.

“This particular exercise is a valuable opportunity to not only test how the region’s fire and rescue services work together but also to work with the recently established Yorkshire Ambulance Service Hazardous Area Response Team (HART).

“Opportunities to train together on this scale are rare and we will be looking to take away some important pointers on good practice as well as development needs for the future.”

The HART unit is specially trained to deal with situations involving explosions, dangerous chemicals and other hazardous materials.