Mark Your Calendar!

This site is under construction! Please report issues to info [@] beaconexercise.org.

Please join the discussion at Pacificon on Saturday, October 11, 2025.

BEACON: Building Emergency Area Communications, Operations, and Networks

Auxiliary Communications (AuxComm) is the term adopted by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to refer to volunteer led backup communications during disasters. AuxComm has been a component of the National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) since 2014, and states are asked to adopt AuxComm in their state plans. California adopted AuxComm in the California Statewide Interoperability Communications Plan (CalSCIP) in 2022.

BEACON unites the volunteer auxiliary communications community with the career professionals that rely on them for disaster response. The Exercise focuses on the expected roles, responsibilities, and outcomes that define effective volunteer communications from the neighborhoods and cities up to the state and beyond, including mutual aid practices, official forms, and processes that ensure vital two-way communications to served agencies, NGOs, schools, hospitals, CERT, and other partners.

BEACON draws on real experience learned across the US, from hurricanes in the east, derechos and tornadoes in the midwest, and wildfires in the west. To many in the volunteer radio community, this exercise will be very different because it integrates the methods and practices followed by career emergency management professionals. The exercise is no longer theory, but practice.

As a professionally developed HSEEP-compliant exercise, BEACON provides a standardized, capabilities- and performance-based methodology that allows agencies to assess and validate the policies, plans, procedures, training, equipment, assumptions, and interagency agreements. This assessment helps identify gaps, deficiencies, and vulnerabilities before a real incident occurs.

Agencies also meet part of their Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) funding requirements by participating in HSEEP programs.

Disaster Scenario

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is expected to generate a massive earthquake followed by a destructive tsunami, with extensive flooding along the northern and central California coast. In such an event, communicators will likely be tasked to engage other volunteers to give situation reports; provide radio assistance to shelters, schools, and hospitals; set up public information posts at police and fire stations, libraries, and other public places; help coordinate resources within neighborhoods; ensure messages get delivered to their intended recipient; and communicate resource requests through official channels.

Documents

Free access to our training material:
BEACON Exercise documents

How To Participate

BEACON Exercise welcomes all to participate: Agencies, schools, hospitals, transportation, Red Cross, logistics, NGOs, radio teams, etc. The more variety the participants, the more realistic the exercise, and the better prepared we will be when needed.

• Registration opens in October

• You will be matched to a group in your area.

• Invite others to participate.

• Attend pre-exercise training events.

• Join the exercise on May 30 2026

• Provide feedback.