GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - While sports fans from across the country enjoy the start of the NCAA College Basketball Tournament, Officials from across Hall County are channeling that March madness into a fire simulation meant to test their skills under pressure.  

Conditions in Grand Island may still be wintry, but inside the emergency management center in Hall County things are heating up.

There's two different command posts set up- one is an incident command post, and another is an emergency operation center. They are filled with Hall County Representatives from the sheriff's office, police, fire department, EMS, and more as the two groups work through fictional scenarios in the hopes of honing their fire response skills. 

Jon Rosenlund is the Director of Grand Island/Hall County Emergency Management gave more details about the special event, saying "Each moment in the game corresponds to an additional disaster situation. For example a foul represents a fire, a missed free throw means a missing person, and every field goal scored equals a displaced individual in need of shelter and so on."

The simulation quickly required the many groups to coordinate with one another. 

"So as the incident unfolds and gets worse, the incident management team has to manage those, those accumulating details of the of the incident, come up with a plan, get the resources, and make sure that we can manage things, in a good effective way," said Rosenlund. 

He added that the organizations try to have regular exercises where they simulate complex incidents including severe weather events, such as tornadoes, blizzards, floods, or large urban fires. 

This is in anticipation for any upcoming fires, and officials say even though there's moisture on the ground at the moment, it can change in an instant.

"The last couple of weeks, particularly our fire at the Custer County Fire Complex we saw a few weeks ago helps us understand the necessity of good wildfire protection in our communities," said Rosenlund. 

Operations continued throughout the day, featuring various scenarios of wildfires popping up across the greater Grand Island area.