International exercise with XVR in Austria

This September the ‘Full Scale Exercise’ (FSX) of the major international security exercise Ironore2019 took place in Austria. The FSX is the second part of Ironore2019, after the Discussion Based Exercise in June.

IRONORE2019

The Ironore2019 exercise is funded by the European Union and aims to strengthen the European Union's civil protection mechanism. Ironore2019 is organised by the Austrian Red Cross ('Österreichisches Rotes Kreuz', ÖRK), ÖRK Styria, the Hungarian Red Cross, the Disaster Competence Network Austria and the iHELP Institute from Poland. The project is divided into three parts: a modern table-top exercise (the so-called 'Discussion Based Exercise' (DBX) in June), a large-scale outdoor exercise (the 'Full Scale Exercise' (FSX) in September) and the evaluation workshops. XVR Simulation and XVR's Austrian partner MindConsole are intensively involved in each stage.

FSX

During the FSX, the city of Eisenerz was hit by a fictitious earthquake. One of the main goals of the exercise was to practise the collaboration between international rescue services and local emergency services. The FSX focused on training all crew members and commanders. A total of 1500 people was involved, varying from participants, observers, victim actors, role-players and training staff. During the FSX, XVR Crisis Media is used to simulate news items and social media messages.

DRIVER+

In addition, the fourth trial of the European DRIVER+ project will be carried out during the FSX. In this Trial, a number of innovations for crisis management will be tried out in the realistic setting of this large-scale practical exercise.

One of the innovations that was tested, is the renewed 'psychosocial first aid training' of the Danish Red Cross, which is supported by XVR On Scene. XVR Simulation has helped the Danish Red Cross to set up a new training course using virtual reality to quickly and effectively train (spontaneous) volunteers in providing psychosocial care. This training will be tested during the trial, by first giving a group of volunteers that training and then immediately putting it to use in the ruined Eisenerz.