If you spot helicopters flying back and forth from Ballard today, not to worry – the Seattle Fire Department will be doing an exercise at Golden Gardens and Carkeek Park from 10am to noon. The parks will remain open, however some areas of each park will closed off during the exercise.

According to Seattle Fire, the purpose of the exercise is to practice transporting rescue and supply resources via helicopter to an isolated area. They’ll be conducting the exercises in partnership with Seattle Parks, Police, King County Sheriff’s Office and Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

For the exercise, two helicopters loaded with rescue personnel and supplies will take off from Golden Gardens. They’ll then hover over the Model Airplane area of Carkeek and lower the rescue crews and supplies to ground level. The helicopters will then take the crews and supplies back to Golden Gardens.

Photo from Seattle.gov