Making sure that Houston's largest airport is always prepared for even the most dire of circumstances, the fire fighters at Bush Intercontinental recently participated in an emergency response preparedness training.

During the emergency response training, held at Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) for two weeks in April, fire fighters of the two on-site fire stations at IAH participated in a variety of emergency response exercises that among other things polished their response measures to major incidents.

During the first week of training, fire fighters received classroom training in compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration's Part 139 Certification requirements for Airport and Rescue Fire Fighting at Class 1 facilities - airports serving all types of operations.

Bush Intercontinental serves large air carrier aircraft, unscheduled large air carrier aircraft and scheduled small air carrier aircraft and therefore is categorized as a Class 1 Airport.

Part 139 is a federal rule that empowers the Federal Aviation Administration to certify airports for aircraft operations.

Depending on the type of operations held at an airport, U.S. airports can be categorized in one of four categories - Class I, II, III or IV.

In the second week of training, a mobile replica of a 727 aircraft - supplied by Texas Engineering Extension Services, a partner of Texas A&M University - was utilized to simulate real life emergency situations involving aircraft on fire.

"Making sure our fire fighters are always prepared for any situation is not a responibility we take lightly," said Tom Bartlett, deputy director of Operations and Maintenance for the Houston Airport System. "Passenger safety and airport security are of the utmost importance to our airports."

Airport and Rescue Fire Fighters must renew their certification each year. Every other year airports are allowed to use mobile units on site to complete this certification process.

To ensure compliance with the Part 139 regulation, FAA Safety inspectors conduct annual revisions at all the nation's airports.

Should an airport not comply, the FAA can impose administrative action up to and including the revocation of the airport's certification.

With five active runways, IAH is the ninth busiest airport in the country for total passengers. Last year, the airport served 48 million passengers and moved more than 347,000 metric tons of air cargo.