National Guard civil support teams, FBI train for chemical, biological threats during Exercise Hellgate at Camp Orchard

National Guard civil support teams, FBI train for chemical, biological threats during Exercise Hellgate at Camp Orchard By Sgt. Rusty Rehl, Idaho Army National Guard Public Affairs

BOISE, Idaho – National Guard civil support teams from four states joined the FBI, Army National Guard aviation crews and law enforcement officers for a mock raid on simulated chemical and biological laboratories Sept. 22-23 at the Idaho Army National Guard’s Camp Orchard.

Participating teams included the Utah National Guard’s 85th CST, the South Dakota National Guard’s 82nd CST, the Arizona National Guard’s 91st CST and the Idaho National Guard’s 101st CST. Decontamination teams from all four CSTs set up joint lines to process tactical teams and simulated casualties coming out of contaminated areas, while medical sections tracked symptoms and coordinated evacuation.

Local and regional law enforcement partners included the Boise Police Department, Boise Fire Department, Ada County Sheriff’s Office, Idaho State Police and Salt Lake City police officers.

“Having the county sheriff’s office, also with your local PD, and then having your FBI all here together and understanding each other’s capabilities has been awesome,” Lt. Col. Ryan Morrissey said, commander of the Arizona National Guard’s 91st CST.

The raid was a centerpiece of Exercise Hellgate, a four-day, multiagency exercise Sept. 21-24 designed to test how National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams, federal agents and first responders work together against a chemical, biological or radiological attack on a community.

CH-47 Chinook crews from the Nevada Army National Guard’s B Company, 1st Battalion, 189th Aviation Regiment, along with Idaho Army National Guard crews from the 1st Battalion, 183rd Aviation Regiment, flew teams and simulated casualties between Gowen Field and landing zones at Camp Orchard.

“Having the capabilities to get on a military helicopter with some of the federal partners like FBI, that’s just been awesome,” said Morrissey, “The training value has been great to exercise that strike package.”

For many participants, the exercise marked the first time their units had worked side by side. A major focus was getting each agency’s communications systems connected so teams could share a common picture of the threat in real time.

“That’s always a challenge, because everyone has different common operating pictures, different software they use, different systems that they use,” Morrissey said. “So it’s been good, because this has really tested us in feeding in the information together and understanding each other’s ways they’re communicating from a tactical standpoint to then also at our tactical operations centers.”

Exercise planners built the scenario around a fictional extremist network plotting coordinated attacks on public venues across the Treasure Valley. Throughout the week, joint teams of CST members, FBI bomb technicians, K-9 handlers and police officers practiced hazard assessments at simulated event sites before the exercise moved to Camp Orchard.

At Camp Orchard’s Combined Arms Collective Training Facility, FBI SWAT teams cleared buildings staged as clandestine laboratories. CST survey teams followed, screening for hazards, collecting and packaging samples and maintaining chain of custody for evidence.

Beyond building relationships, the exercise allowed the CST teams to test newly developed decontamination and joint hazard assessment procedures. Lessons learned will be used to refine those procedures ahead of future large-scale security missions.

“My favorite part of it from my level as a commander is just being able to be engaged and be part of the planning process and the response planning process at all the different levels,” Morrissey said. “Either it be you know state assets or it be the federal partners, and just understanding their planning and procedures on how they're tackling some of these complex situations.”

Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams are full-time National Guard units made up of Army and Air National Guard members. The teams support civil authorities by identifying chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive hazards, assessing their effects, advising incident commanders and helping coordinate additional state and federal support.

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