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msar-riders - [MSAR] ICS and SAR group structure

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [MSAR] ICS and SAR group structure
  • Date: Tue Feb 4 14:26:02 2003

Una Smith wrote:
>>There isn't much need for support in an MSAR group; unless they
>>already have SAR skills, non-riders are a lot of work and someone
>>who does have SAR skills needs to stay with them.

Ian Vowles <Ian@modric.net>, in Colorado, wrote:
>On "unmounted" assets - our philosophy is that we require a full ground
>support team to establish our base and staging areas , (we use ICS
>principals) , this means our field base is manned with our comunications
>team , radio loggers , map plotters , liasion officer for working with
>agency calling us out , safety officer ( very important we think ) and
[etc]

We use ICS in New Mexico also, but here our SAR groups tend to
be smaller. We have dog groups, horse groups, ATV groups, etc.
but very few groups do multiple specialties. Our state resource
list (http://www.dps.nm.org/sar/teams.htm) now has 85 groups,
which is a *lot* of SAR groups for such an unpopulated state.
Despite this, searches in New Mexico are run about the same as
Ian describes in Colorado. Incident base and staging area(s)
are manned by people trained in ICS, providing whatever support
is needed for the mission at hand. In fact, in New Mexico some
groups specialize in providing support (computing, planning,
communications, liason, etc.). You could say we are fragmented
but that's the whole point of ICS: small, specialized units
that take care of their own training requirements, are ready to
respond as needed, and (thanks to ICS) know how to work together
with other resources even if not personally acquainted. We have
state-wide SAR management that runs multi-group, multi-specialty
training missions, and we have an annual SAR conference, so we
all can get acquainted with other SAR people in our region.

Una Smith
Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, New Mexico





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