SELECTED ASPECTS OF CONSTRUCTING SCENARIOS OF FIRST RESPONDER EXERCISES IN CONDITIONS OF AN UNRECOGNIZED TERRORIST THREAT
Authors: SAŁACIŃSKI Tomasz , Rzadkowska Klaudia , Wiaderek Barbara 
Published: December 2024

In the publicly available literature, there are no studies on the selection of training techniques tobest prepare the members of law enforcement and rescue teams arriving as the first respondersto the correct diagnosis of the CBRNE threat, despite the impact of the largest possible numberof external conditions, hereinafter referred to as factors. Among first responders, the key role isplayed by officers of the Fire Service and Health Service. On the other hand, the analysed factorsmay be both irrelevant to the correct recognition of CBRNE threats and may make it difficult oreven impossible to properly assess the situation at the initial stage of the rescue operation.The research problem undertaken in this article is to investigate the extent to which the detailof the exercise scenarios, made through the selection of the aforementioned factors, allowsa comprehensive description of the conditions prevailing at the time when rescuers are assessingwhether a situation has arisen as a result of the use of CBRNE material(s). The analysis focuses onexercise scenarios assuming that first responders have a limited amount of technical means at theirdisposal to detect CBRNE threats, and that at least one of the following factors occurs:– the existing situation does not clearly indicate a terrorist attack with the use of hazardousmaterial/materials from the CBRN group, or their accidental release;– the used CBRN material does not have immediate effects in the environment and neitherprocedures for its detection nor procedures to be followed in the event of its identificationhave been developed;– an explosive was used in combination with CBRN material(s) with the characteristicsdescribed above.The research method consisted in proposing 3 levels of detailing any issue included in the scenarioof exercise related to the initial stage of the rescue operation, i.e. the stage of arrival of the firstFire Brigade, Police patrol or Medical Rescue Team at the scene. The adopted levels of detail in thedescription of a given issue are modules, variables and factors. Modules and variables are levelsthat describe selected factors in increasing detail. There can be an unlimited number of variables ineach module. On the other hand, an unlimited number of factors can be assigned to each variable.Modules and variables make it easier to manage the entire set of factors. The result of the work is the indication of 23 modules, 48 variables and 225 factors. In 11 modules, variables and/orfactors were not indicated. The modules taken into considerations are as follows: ‒ Hazardousmaterial used, e.g. chemical substance, explosive material; ‒ Improvised explosive device (IED),e.g. pipe bomb, car bomb,;‒ Carrier, e.g. letter, suitcase, rail vehicle; ‒ Time, e.g. season of a year,day of a week; ‒ Weather conditions, e.g. temperature, presence and kind of wind; ‒ Location,e.g. airspace, river, city; ‒ Available detection techniques; ‒ Communications systems; ‒ Artificialintelligence and decision supporting systems; ‒ Security teams, e.g. state services, other formations’‒ Emergency Service Teams; ‒ Teams of specialist services; ‒ Cooperation of agencies; ‒ Media andsocial difficulties; ‒ Communication difficulties, e.g. roadblock, accident; ‒ Sources of electricalenergy; ‒ Animals; ‒ Witnesses, e.g. availability of a witness, interactions with witnesses; ‒ Numberand type of victims, e.g. interactions with victims, age of victims; ‒ Behaviour of victims; ‒ Numberand type of perpetrators, e.g. nationality of the perpetrators, motivation of the perpetrators; and‒ Behaviour of spectators. For each of the above factors, the point of view of the multiplicity effectwas taken into account, i.e. whether a given factor occurred individually and only at one point intime, or whether it appeared several times in a given scenario.