Three members of Formentera's fire brigade will take part this weekend in a training programme for firefighters and health professionals. Now in its eleventh year, the annual event will draw emergency response workers, firefighters and health professionals from an array of Spanish provinces when it takes place on Eivissa.

As the classes play out today and tomorrow (Saturday) in the former home of the Sant Rafel convent, instruction will centre on managing traffic accidents, victims of multiple traumas, fires, building collapses and, among others, hazardous cargo. Common to each situation is an underlying need for cross-cutting coordination and participation among multiple teams of emergency response workers in the service of a single goal: improving effective response and reducing mortality and lethality of accidents.

The course is designed and facilitated by the experienced firefighters and healthcare educators making up the Emergency Staff company's corps of emergency aid instructors.

Electrical fire simulation at es Ca Marí power station
On a different note, Formentera's firefighters took part today in an exercise at the es Ca Marí power plant involving a simulated fire. A call from the 112 emergency phone service came through on the local brigade's line at 11.17am. The crew was informed of a simulated generator fire at the plant and told to execute their response imagining es Ca Marí's on-site equipment had failed. Two officers and one truck were enlisted in the exercise and flames were controlled and extinguished by 11.45am. Such interventions are generally conducted once yearly as part of the power plant's safety protocol.