Mounted search and rescue

["Heather M. Jones" <heather_jones@att.net>]

Sorry for the delay in response. Things have been a bit hectic here.

Una, I'm with you. Talking your way past police barricades is stupid and
dangerous. For the fires out here, in the Colorado Front Range in 2000 and
2002, we were called out by the sheriff's dept, and deployed into the
perimeter. You may want to talk with your local animal control office. Even
before we were a CART (County Animal Response Team), we worked under the
umbrella of Animal Control and the Sheriff's dept. They call us out,
dispatch us to homes or ranches that need our services, and manage the
process. By partnering with the county, we are covered by their liability
insurance, and we know that they are looking at the firemaps when they  send
us in. That means that they're not sending us into currently blazing areas,
or god forbid, if something does blow up, they know where we are. You were
also asking about forms. We use the county's impound forms. It has all of
the information that we need on it, we keep a copy, give one to animal
control, and leave one with the horse at its final destination which is
specified by the county.Usually the fairgrounds, but when those fill up,
there are other areas that turn into temporary holding area. We use butt
tags and butt glue (you might see this at an auction or on a group of cattle
being worked) to identify these creatures. I can tell you from personal
experience that butt glue will stick to everything it comes in contact
with...no worries that the tags will come off. The brand inspector, animal
control, state vet's office etc, are all there at the fairgrounds to intake
the animals.

Our biggest challenge is finding a core group of interested volunteers.
Since you have that core with your SAR group, you may want to think about
training a section of them in some things specific to fire. Who knows, they
may all be interested...you guys have some big ones down there. A red card,
wildland firefighting certificate is comprised of wildland fire behavior,
using tools to fight fires, and a physical exam. For liability reasons, we
are not red carded firefighters. However, we have all taken the first class,
fire behavior, which is imperative (and mandatory in our area) for entering
the fire perimeter.

A side note, but one that you may find useful. From my experience, you
should know how your volunteers load horses. Many of the people you will be
evacuating have never thought to load their horse (read: lawn ornament) into
a trailer. In my last organization, I watched a former team mate work
himself into a froth trying to load two freaked out, geriatric horses into
his trailer. It was 2:30am, and their owners wouldn't evacuate until their
horses got out, and the firefighters couldn't evacuate until the owners got
out. The fire was so close it was raining ash and smoldering pine needles on
us. Very dangerous situation. The man had always thought you could beat any
horse to get into a trailer, and that was his first course of action. I
refused to whip the horses or hit them with shovels, as did my teammates.
Finally, we were able to separate him from the horses, and had them loaded
in under 5 minutes using a light touch and gaining some trust. Please learn
from this. If you're going to  take critters out, learn to give a horse a
crash course in loading, in a gentle non-stress inducing way. If you don't
have five minutes to load and the flames are licking at your trailer, you've
made a critical error in judgement for your location. Not every horse is an
easy loader, but you can do your best to minimize the stress and terror of
the horse.

We've been in the fires with other groups, but creating our own group (both
state and county) takes a little bit of time. The state vet has spearheaded
our SART program, and he's touching everything from fires, to floods to
technical rescue and terrorist attacks. The head of our county animal
control office has really facilitated our training, exposure and
opportunities. We have other counties approaching us to create local
chapters within their area, and we have responded to disasters within our
neighboring 8 counties.

What else can I help with?