Firefighters, police and a chemical response team are working together in downtown Wheeling on a training exercise.

The agencies are practicing their response to a hostage scenario involving a chemical device in a political campaign.

Firefighters and police are gathered at WesBanco Arena in Wheeling for the exercise.

Wheeling fire chief Larry Helms said his department is used to working with Wheeling police, but they are also working with the National Guard’s chemical response team today.

“Agencies such as the CST team from the state, those are things that operating with the National Guard, we need to see what they have and what we need to do to intercommunicate and make things go smoothly,” said Helms.

Helms said today will allow the department to see what changes they need to make to respond if the situation ever became real.

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