Fire alert at US Embassy

Firemen attending the alert at the embassy were not aware it was a simulation.

The United States Embassy in Wellington was on full security alert yesterday, but not because of a terrorist attack.

A simulated exercise had been planned virtually in secret, and neither embassy staff nor on-duty emergency service workers attending the callout were aware that the threat was not genuine.

It had been planned with senior members of the police and Fire Service, who wanted to test their organisations' reactions to a terror alert at the central Wellington diplomatic post.