Fire Department based Search and Rescue teams

Tonight I am pulling a shift at the Johnston Fire department. This has turned into that magical day that happens every fall where rain unexpectedly turns the highways to ice, and motorists traveling at 70+ miles per hour find them selves hurtling side ways, back wards, and upside down across multiple lanes of traffic.

Now that things have settled down my company officer tossed me the latest copy of Fire Engineering magazine. He told me that there was an article I needed to read. Turning to the Volunteer corner I found the following title. "Forming a Ground Search and Rescue Team". The article features the Blue Lake Township Fire Department (MI) BLTFD has taken it upon themselves to train and respond to Search and Rescue requests. They have used NFPA 1670 as their standard, and they have built a box card style response structure including searchers, search managers, CERT team members, and K-9 resources. It appears to be a very well thought out and executed team.

All things considered it is a great article. I would love to see a few FD's in my area get together to establish a ground based SAR team. Very cool guys.

Comments

[Jono Adams]

I'm sure if put into place correctly, it could be just as good as anything else, but personally, I've had bad experiences with FD-associated SAR in my area (Southwestern PA).

Around here at least, they seem to think that the two surefire people finders are ATVs and dogs; and so any major search, you'll have dozens of departments showing up, not directly requested, with poorly trained "trailing" dogs and ATV operators that want to just tear through the search area as quickly as possible.

Very rarely do they come prepared for fieldwork either. The number of times firefighters have showed up in shorts and t-shirts, or worse yet, bunker gear for wilderness searches is amazing.

[isuhawkeye]

Good to know, feel free to take a look at the Snowmobile presentation that we have listed. Let me know if you think those types of programs would help.

Also, what types of teams work best in your area?