The Final Trial was held in Chambéry in the Savoie region of France on 28-29 September. Organised by TL & Associates and kindly hosted by SDIS73, fire officers were able to test and assess the complete TERRIFFIC System in an operational setting using a variety of real radiation sources.
This trials’ campaign, both in France and Slovakia, has been at the heart of the whole project. We have involved practitioners from the police and fire services throughout and used real radioactive sources so that we can whether the TERRIFFIC System can add value to incident commanders in an RNe incident.
In Chambéry, fire officers first used their legacy methods to conduct searches for the radioactive sources and then repeated the exercise using the TERRIFFIC System. But in the second case, they used different scenarios and different source types, so that they could assess whether the System could offer them any tangible benefits.
Certainly, it seems from the interview with Col. Denis Giordan of SDIS73 that TERRIFFIC could indeed offer certain advantages over legacy systems. “I think that TERRIFFIC, after two long days of tests, training and trials may be added into our toolbox,” said Col. Giordan. He added: “TERRIFFIC is not able to give solutions to each situation, but TERRIFFIC may be part of a solution in numerous situations.”
A full report on the assessment of the System is currently being prepared for the European Commission.