Search and Rescue Alberta trains 200 volunteers in preparation of wildfire season, other disasters
Search and Rescue Alberta and the Town of Cochrane are preparing for another busy wildfire season in the province as they participate in emergency mock exercises.
Brian Carriere, president of Search and Rescue Alberta, said this is the first provincial disaster response exercise, with approximately 200 volunteers practising wildfire evacuation and other emergency situations over the course of three days, wrapping up Saturday.
While the encompassing scenario was wildfire, exercises included a mock mass casualty incident, an evacuation and a water rescue scenario that included a rope rescue.
“From notification for evacuation all the way up to technical rescue skills for people that would have been simulated as being lost or injured during the fire evacuation process,” Carriere said.
Volunteers with SARA train with their home teams for search-and-rescue missions and have specialized training in disaster and emergency response.
“We believe in being prepared for operations all the time, so this would have been conducted or planned regardless of wildfires because we want to be ready for all hazards’ responses. We’ve been preparing for this exercise for two years now, doing background training and preparing a new training program.”
Carriere said SARA has a much larger role in both helping local communities and coming together to help communities collectively.
“We’re going to analyze team performance; we will work on our operational procedures and then use it to develop further training so we can get even better in the future.”
The 2024 Alberta budget includes an additional $141 million over the course of the next three years to deal with wildfires in the province. Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen said an additional $55 million will go toward operational expenditures.
“We’re in a world where natural disasters are becoming more and more frequent, so having a flexible team that can respond to any type of emergency is important, so you have that response capability in the province,” Carriere said. “We’ve had lessons from the minute we started planning. We’re learning how to configure teams, we’re learning how to communicate more effectively, we’re trying out different communication equipment, we’re trying out different briefing styles, and we’ve combined teams from all across the province together for the first time and mixed the teams up so people are learning from each other; every minute they’re learning something new.”