With the threat of devastating wildfires looming over the Cheyenne Mountain community, hundreds of students, parents and first responders gathered outside The Broadmoor World Arena Friday morning to run through a new emergency response plan.

About 250 Cheyenne Mountain School District 12 students waited patiently on one side of the arena as school staff coordinated with the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management, Colorado Springs Police Department, Colorado Springs Fire Department and other local school districts on a new wildland fire emergency evacuation exercise.

Because of its location at the bottom of the namesake mountain, along with other distinctions, D-12 recently determined wildland fires to be the “most impactful” kind of emergency it could face and developed a plan and procedure in the event this should occur.

“Obviously, we constantly think about all the potential safety risks to the district, and wildland fire kept coming to the top,” D-12 Superintendent David Peak said.

Peak added that the district already has smaller-scale emergency procedures in place, but nothing that involved mass evacuations.

D-12’s security personnel began developing the plan this spring with PPROEM, and the district informed parents of the initial exercise last month in advance.

Additionally, because of the district’s smaller size of about 3,700 students, narrow neighborhood streets and close school locations, the district has opted over the years to only utilize bus transportation for its special needs students and school activities with students typically walking, biking and carpooling to school. This exacerbated the district’s ability to evacuate in the case of an emergency.

As a solution to the lack of transportation, D-12 collaborated with neighboring school districts Harrison D-2 and Colorado Springs D-11 to provide additional school buses and personnel in the event of an evacuation. The arena was selected as the drop-off/pick-up location because of its size and manageable location.

Following a monthly fire drill, students across the district’s schools were dropped off at the outside of the arena as they waited for their notified parents to pick them up. Parents were notified throughout the process via Thrillshare, an online tool that updates parents via text, email and voice messages.

“It was good; it was easy,” said D-12 parent Rob Bogojevich said of the whole process. “I’m glad they’re doing this and that they’re doing this now before, you know, something happens.”

Students were bused to one area of the arena while perimeters and areas were set up for parents to sign in, students to reunite with their parents one by one and media personnel to gather outside of operations.

“We want to try and keep everybody separated as we get everybody transported, in the event of the typical traffic we might see around here,” Peak said.

Following the completion of the exercise, the various parties met for a debrief to discuss options to improve operations going forward.

Most families agreed that the trial run was relatively smooth.

“No, I think it went pretty well,” parent Britanny Vanderburg said when asked if she had any recommendations. “I’d say, maybe, just find a way to keep them out of the sun going forward.