Canada-U.S. joint op to take place next week

A test of communications equipment between law enforcement officials from the United States and Canada will take place Monday and Tuesday.

Hill County Sheriff Don Brostrom said that this exercise, Canada-U.S. Enhanced Resiliency Experiment, or CAUSE, will be a functional one.

“We are putting on a communications scenario — it’s to simulate a wildland fire that kind of gets out of control that crosses from the Wild Horse side to the Willow Creek side and then into the U.S.,” Brostrom said.

This is to see if the U.S. and Canada will be able to communicate easily if there was an actual emergency.

“They tie all three of the systems together at the Wild Horse Port of Entry and allows us to talk seamlessly from the Albertans, to the Saskatchewan folks to the U.S. folks,” Brostrom said.

Brostrom said the main goal is to set up a policy and procedure concerning emergency situations.

“If something does happen, say we do have a huge wildland fire — we know what's available, we know what we can do,” he said.

According to a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate press release, this will be part of the multi-year series of joint experiments.

In June 2011, the CAUSE I experiment project engaged the operational emergency management communities in British Columbia and the bordering U.S. states. The goal of this experiment was to improve emergency equipment concerning earthquakes. For example, CAUSE I tested to see if structure damage information would be able to be shared in real time.

In March 2013, the CAUSE II exercise demonstrated the ability to exchange information between 12 local, state, provincial and national agencies using various systems and software such as mutual aid support system.

The CAUSE III experiment’s goal is to address cross-border communications interoperability with a special focus on the following areas:

• Land Mobile Radio/Public Safety Broadband Network interoperability protocols

• Alerts, warnings and notifications

• Cross border mutual aid best practices

• Sharing social media for emergency management

The following agencies will be participating in this experiment:

• Hill County Sheriff’s Office

• Havre Fire Department — Chief Dave Sheppard

• Havre Police Department — Detective Sgt. Jason Barkus

• Hill County Rural Fire Department

• Blaine County Sheriff’s Office

• Blaine County Disaster & Emergency Services

• Montana Disaster & Emergency Services

• U.S. Border Patrol

• Triangle Communications