Fortunately, it was all part of a training exercise put on by the Metro Fire Agency.

The agency is required to complete disaster-training exercises every year, but this year's event spanned three days and dealt with everything from hostage situations to hazardous-materials suits.

The training began when a "crazed gunman" took hostages at a Midvale City Council meeting. After SWAT officers went in and killed the gunman and saved the hostages, they noticed a suspicious briefcase, which was full of bomb-making equipment.

The trail led emergency responders to Rocky Mountain Raceways, where the exercise continued with a car fire, a U-Haul truck leaking suspicious substances, and a credible terrorist threat.

"For us it's just excellent training," said Kris Romijn, West Valley's assistant fire chief and one of the event's organizers. "It allows us to use all the tools in our tool box."

The exercise helped to cement relationships between the various Metro agencies and federal emergency responders, said Steve Foote, South Salt Lake fire chief. The 92nd Civil Support Team (CST) came up from Nevada to support the fire agencies and lend their hazmat expertise.

Lt. Col. Ed Locke, Commander of the 92nd CST, said exercises like these allow the different agencies to learn from one another. It is also a chance for civilian agencies to learn specialized skills from the CST.

One part of the exercise involved chemical contamination at the raceway. Responders donned hazmat suits to face the threat, evacuated and decontaminated civilian victims and used the CST mobile lab to determine what chemical was causing the problem.

Sandy City Firefighter Ryan Lessner got the chance to suit up and set the safety perimeter. With temperatures at the raceway topping 95 degrees, Lessner put on the vapor-tight yellow suit. The temperature inside the suits can reach 30 degrees above the outside air's temperature, with 100 percent humidity. Lessner said it was hard to see and he had limited mobility and dexterity. After completing the perimeter, he had to go through complete decontamination before cooling off.

Despite the miserable conditions, Lessner enjoyed the experience.

"It's a great opportunity for us to practice with CST," Lessner said. "We're able to get a lot of knowledge and expertise from them."

Foote and another organizer said the entire exercise was immensely helpful to all the agencies that participated. Though responders knew the training would be taking place, they did not know what events to expect. They had to make all decisions and diagnoses in the heat of the moment, just as in an actual emergency.

Foote has planned a debriefing meeting to discuss the outcome of the exercise. He said one lesson learned is that responders need more practice time with equipment. Some of the generators did not perform as well as they should have, though backup equipment was able to step in.

"A lot of work went into this," Foote said, "and just to see it come off as well as it did was very satisfying to us."

kdrake@sltrib.com