By Bruce Finley
The Denver Post
Copyright 2007 The Denver Post
All Rights Reserved
WATKINS, Colo. — As birds chirped and cattle grazed on the green prairie grass, would-be terrorism first responders watched improvised bombs explode. One was a water bottle, another a briefcase. There were also envelopes packed with plastic explosives.
The responders studied the fireball as a flaming tire rocketed 300 feet into the sky. They sniffed the fumes as milk jugs filled with gasoline ignited. They rushed to the scene after a 15-pound bucket of diesel-soaked fertilizer — the recipe used in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 — shattered a Chevy Astro van.
This was the scene at a new Department of Homeland Security-funded course — the first of several nationwide — designed to help police, sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and firefighters prepare for a terrorist attack.
Some 31 participants from agencies across the country including U.S. military personnel — led by 22 federal and local bomb experts — gathered for this three-day course Tuesday at a University of Denver field station.
“It’s going to be just like war in the first 15 minutes after a blast,” said ex-FBI explosives expert Dave Williams, who led the forensics investigations at Oklahoma City and in New York after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
“Now, they won’t be overwhelmed. The biggest thing is not to lose your head.”
First responders worked on sifting through blast shards for evidence that could be used to track terrorists after blasts, and on recognizing secondary bombs designed to kill them.
Homeland Security officials in Washington, D.C., called this training crucial as the U.S. response to terrorism evolves.
“You want to do everything you can to prevent an attack. But given the ‘lone wolf’ scenario — the radicalized individual who builds a bomb in his bathtub — that’s going to be difficult to prevent 100 percent of the time,” Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.
The course will help in day-to-day operations because, over the past five years, more people nationwide have been reporting items they suspect may be bombs, said Philip Tracey of the Hingham, Mass., police department.
A third of the participants came from Denver-area agencies preparing for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
“We’re definitely going to be prepared for anything,” Arapahoe County sheriff’s Deputy Vic Thiret said.