In an earthquake like the one that struck Nepal last week, the east wing of Vancouver’s city hall would probably collapse. That’s why it’s been slated for demolition since last year.

Before it’s knocked down, however, it’s serving as a training ground for B.C.’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team, a group of first responders and engineers specially trained for situations like the Nepal earthquake.

On Saturday, members of the HUSAR team gave reporters a tour of the condemned building, and lamented the fact that the skills they’ve been developing there won’t be put to use in Kathmandu.

“It’s like being a firefighter and training, training, training, and never going to a fire,” said Joe Foster, the assistant chief of Vancouver Fire and Rescue in charge of the HUSAR team. “Once you go to a fire it just changes the way you look at things slightly, and you get better at what you do.”

Canada has deployed a Medical Assistance Team and a military Disaster Assistance Response Team to Nepal, but it didn’t call for Foster and his team.

With thousands still missing after the earthquake, Foster said he thinks the HUSAR team would be a great help on the ground in Nepal and in future disasters at home.

“I think it would benefit Canada to have the teams responding over to anywhere there’s a need,” he said. “Not only for the people there, but for the take-homes and the takeaways from those experiences.”

The HUSAR team has roughly 120 members, including firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, city engineering staff members, and civilian engineering experts.

They’ve been deployed in the past to help out after Hurricane Katrina, the 2013 Calgary floods, and mudslides on the North Shore.

Similar teams from Poland, Italy, and the United States have been deployed to Nepal.

For Jeff Snider, a canine handler for the HUSAR team, training in a vacant wing of city hall will never quite be as beneficial as a real deployment.

“Nothing gets you quite as prepared as the real thing,” he said. “The more we go, the better we get, and the better we’re going to be for the people of Vancouver and British Columbia.”

For now, though, B.C.’s HUSAR team will keep preparing in a simulated disaster, rather than a real one, ready to answer Ottawa’s call, whenever it comes.