Operation Helios tests the capital’s resilience to extreme heat

Coinciding with London Climate Action Week, emergency services and agencies across the capital came together this week for a training exercise to test out their response to an extreme heat event.

Named after the Greek god of the sun, Operation Helios tested the multi-agency response to a five-day period where temperatures exceeded 40 degrees. It was intended to demonstrate London’s ability to deal with future extreme heatwaves and plan ‘to support Londoners and minimise disruption if temperatures reach dangerous levels.’

The exercise was led by the Greater London Authority’s London Resilience Unit and involved over 80 participants drawn from London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service, the Met Police, London borough councils and a range of health, environment, transport, utility and businesses as well as third sector organisations.

In March 2024, the London Climate Resilience Review published an interim report. It included a recommendation to ‘Conduct an exercise to test London’s preparedness for a severe heat episode and identify potential cascading and concurrent risks.’ Its author, Emma Howard Boyd CBE, attended the exercise and shared her thoughts on LInkedIn about the use of exercises like Helios.

“We were inspired to make this recommendation when Paris ran an exercise that simulated a 10-day 50°C heatwave in October 2023. We also recommended making extreme weather a consideration for all business-as-usual resilience exercises in London and are pleased there are more severe exercises in the pipeline. The exercise will help inform the development of another of our recommendations: a new pan-London Extreme Heat Plan.”

Emma Howard Boyd CBE, author of the London Climate Resilience Review.

Bob Ward, Policy and Communications Director for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change wrote about the exercise in the London Evening Standard. He said that the heatwave of 2022 where wildfires affected the outer edges of London, was “not a one-off and the Met Office has warned that the probability of similar temperatures, or higher is growing all the time due to climate change.”

The final report from the London Climate Resilience Review is due to be published after the general election. Look out for the Emergency Services Times webinar on preparing for extreme heat which is on 25 July. Registration opens soon.

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