Grand Prairie tested out its emergency procedures on Friday by simulating a fire inside of its Public Safety building.
Multiple departments worked together to quickly respond to the realistic situation for roughly three hours Friday morning.
"This drill is going to test our in-operate building with the different departments within the city," Assistant Fire Chief C.J. Grippin said.
The simulated laundry fire happened inside the jail. Smoke filled the laundry room, and volunteers playing jail mates were evacuated.
The volunteers acted as if they were hurt. Some even had makeup on their faces and bodies to simulate different injuries. Fire crews responded to the scene and rushed to a critically burned victim, checking his condition before loading him into an ambulance.
Dewayne Gates, a volunteer who played one of the jail mates, said he enjoyed helping out in this nontraditional way.
"Going in and out of consciousness, coughing, telling them how bad the pain was and screaming and yelling when they touched me or picked me up -- it was all really a lot of fun," he said.
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Friday's test was the city's first emergency drill since moving into the Public Safety building almost two years ago.
