Mainly cloudy with chance of black smoke in the air near Canada’s biggest airport

The skies in Mississauga on Tuesday are expected to be mainly cloudy — perhaps with some plumes of black smoke near Canada’s biggest and busiest airport.

Not to worry, though. The fires creating any visible smoke in the air are being deliberately set, and controlled, as part of regular live burn training at Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga.

Pearson firefighters will be continuing the training session until about 3 p.m., airport officials said Tuesday morning in a post to social media, adding the airport’s Fire and Emergency Services Training Institute, known as FESTI, is conducting the drill.

The training, conducted multiple times a year, means “there may be smoke visible near the airport” throughout the day, Pearson officials added.

The airport runs several similar drills, in addition to other types of large-scale training sessions, throughout the year and it’s not uncommon for people to see plumes of black smoke in the skies above Toronto Pearson while the exercises are taking place.

The Fire and Emergency Services Training Institute is a private college located on Courtneypark Drive East in Mississauga, just steps from Pearson.

FESTI is also part of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority’s fire department, Pearson officials note. The GTAA operates Pearson Airport.

The emergency training organization has three fire stations and its own fire chief.

In addition to firefighting training sessions such as the one taking place Tuesday, Pearson conducts other exercises each year that include additional first responders (police and paramedics) and other partners.

Among them is a full-scale disaster training session that takes place once a year and involves hundreds of volunteers playing different roles as part of a simulated plane crash or other emergency situation requiring a wide-ranging response. Some 400 members of the airport community, partners and volunteers play the roles of crew members and passengers.

Though the emergency exercise is entirely fake, it’s as close to real as it can be in order to provide the best possible training for all those who’d be called upon in a real emergency, the GTAA said earlier.

Peel Regional Police and Transport Canada also participate in several drills each year at the airport.

(Cover photo: Fire and Emergency Services Training Institute)