While fighter jets practiced landings and takeoffs in the distance, Air National Guardsmen joined their counterparts from across the Atlantic Ocean in battling a blaze ignited inside a four-story, cement-block training building on the base.

Event planners staged multiple emergency situations during the two weeks of Northern Strike, from a downed helicopter to an airplane crash to a structure fire. Military members in mixed-country teams, speaking different languages and trained in different tactics, had to work together to address each crisis, explained Chief Master Sgt. Jeremy Wohlford, CRTC fire chief, who coordinated the Northern Strike fire exercises.

Overcoming communication barriers, participants learned from each other and deftly handled most scenarios, the fire chief said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Wohlford told firefighters when a simulated helicopter crash went awry. “In the real world, that’s what happens. It’s organized chaos.”

News Photo by Julie Riddle Latvian firefighters rest between training exercises at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Tuesday.

Latvian and Estonian personnel and Air National Guard units from Michigan, Arizona, New York, South Dakota, and other states conducted exercises at the base throughout the first weeks of August, including practice with an MQ-9 Reaper remote control aircraft.

On Monday, Northern Strike participants used MQ-9s and Harrier jets — capable of vertical takeoff and landing — to drop simulated bombs into the Carmeuse Lime and Stone quarry in Rogers City, military representatives said.

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Arnis Uzijs, fire instructor for the Latvian military, said techniques learned by each military group participating in Northern Strike could help save lives.

The Latvian called northern Michigan “quiet,” compared to his homeland.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A Latvian firefighter hauls a hose out of a training building at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Tuesday.

“The cars, the buildings are different,” Uzijs said. “The weather is the same.”

Michigan’s military partnership with Latvia dates to the 1990s, and the joint fire program has built skills of each country since 2012, Wohlford said.

During Northern Strike exercises, personnel preparing to address a fire or other mock crisis sometimes argue about the right techniques, each saying their country’s way is best, according to Wohlford.

That conviction leads to each country learning from the other in the controlled environment of the CRTC, before those crises must be faced on the battlefield, he said.

The two-week exercise marks the military highlight of the year for many as Air National Guardsmen give full-time focus to what is usually their part-time job.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Firefighters from Latvia enter a training structure at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Tuesday.

Airman 1st Class Jonna Harris, participating in Northern Strike as a public affairs officer, spends most of her time taking college classes and working for an esports company in the Chicago Area.

Since the beginning of the month, however, she’s been immersed in military exercises preparing men and women from around the world to defend and protect their countries.

Most of the time, she said, she doesn’t think much about the purpose of her enlistment in the Air National Guard.

“You come and and see all this,” Harris said at the CRTC on Tuesday, surrounded by training equipment and the sounds of jets in the distance, “and you’re like, ‘This is what our mission is.'”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A Latvian military firefighter walks toward military vehicles at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Tuesday.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that Northern Strike participants dropped simulated bombs at the Carmeuse Lime and Stone quarry in Rogers City on Monday. The nature of the bombs was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Firefighters from Estonia, left, and Latvia prepare to attack a fire at a training building of the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on Tuesday.