CAP GSAR capability

[DNall]

Actually, as I said before, I believe most missing persons cases involve fowl play even if it's not immediately obvious, and the slightest potential for that to be the case should and does preclude AF participation, and likewise should prohibit CAP assistance, just as much as using our volunteers to sweep streets.

I do believe there's an ES mission in support of states. I believe what we can do for local communities is VERY limited - in terms of ES. Our primary impact on communities is thru cadet programs, and potentially AE, but obviously that isn't happening much.

[RiverAux]

Actually, as I said before, I believe most missing persons cases involve fowl play even if it's not immediately obvious, and the slightest potential for that to be the case should and does preclude AF participation, and likewise should prohibit CAP assistance, just as much as using our volunteers to sweep streets.

Missing person cases are not what we're talking about here and you know it.  And lost person cases obviously do not preclude AF participation as referenced by the case I noted above. 

[Eclipse]

I believe what we can do for local communities is VERY limited - in terms of ES.

If you take the time and effort to make the contacts and present legitimate capabilities (and answer the phone when they call), there's plenty of local ES work.

I speak from personal experience to a process which has taken several years to begin showing results, but which is now paying off and feeding itself.

Part of the issue is the short attention span of members presented with difficult long-term goals that require actual work.

Its very easy to sit and complain "we get no missions", but ramping the people and training to present yourself as a legitimate asset is much harder than the complaining.

[RiverAux]

If you take the time and effort to make the contacts and present legitimate capabilities (and answer the phone when they call), there's plenty of local ES work.

You are absolutely right about that.  Though I'm not proud to admit it, when I've been in positions that include such local liasion as one of their responsibilities, I didn't do as much as I should have.  My only excuse is that it is very difficult to do this sort of local government work when you have a full time job, even one with flexible schedules, especially when your AOR includes quite a few counties.  I may consider angling back into one of those jobs in the future and that will be my priority. 

[DNall]

I believe what we can do for local communities is VERY limited - in terms of ES.

If you take the time and effort to make the contacts and present legitimate capabilities (and answer the phone when they call), there's plenty of local ES work.

I speak from personal experience to a process which has taken several years to begin showing results, but which is now paying off and feeding itself.

Part of the issue is the short attention span of members presented with difficult long-term goals that require actual work.

Its very easy to sit and complain "we get no missions", but ramping the people and training to present yourself as a legitimate asset is much harder than the complaining.

Can you give me some examples of what you're talking about?

I don't mind helping those communities, but I don't see a lot of mission there. Most anything that CAP would/could be involved in on any level are overseen by the state. Local EOCs are worried about getting the traffic lights working and utilities restored.

I'd like to build closer relations with the several county EOCs I have coverage for, and they do an annual hurricane exercise in conjunction with the state that I'd like to get a greater role in, but... I'm not real wild about putting my cadets over there to play victims. That's fine & everything, but again anyone can do that, and during an actual emergency that's not what we'd be doing. We need to be more into the planning & operations end of things - at every level.

What we've done lately is fly some county officials to see damage points in the county after Ike. We could do comm support for their agencies, but that wasn't needed.

Really the state is pretty squared away & handles most everything I can think of that CAP would ever want to be involved with below the federal level. So, yeah examples would be great... I am open minded

[Eclipse]

http://www.cap.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&nodeID=6192&newsID=4783

We have also done aerial in support of tornadoes, and ice-damming on rivers, two different ground-based disaster assessment missions post flooding, and a multi-day / multi-state missing persons, this is all within the last year or so, and in addition to the various redcaps, etc., and does not include a number of cooperative training activities we've done or are planning with local agencies.

We have a strong and growing relationship with the ARC in the state and get called by them on a regular basis (mainly shelter ops and DA), and my Group HQ sits on two different SAR councils which has garnered us at least one mission, and access to ICS training.

We are also cultivating several high-level contacts that should bring us more work and resources.

As I say, this has been a multi-year process that requires constant care and feeding, but also can be somewhat self-sustaining once the chain reaction is started.

When people see you are serious, come when called, and can be counted on to bring your own crayons and color, all they generally want is "more".

I had the unfortunate "opportunity" last night to run out of gas in my SUV on the way to a unit meeting.  As it turned out, I was delivering a bunch of equipment for the mobile command trailer my Group is outfitting.  The tow truck driver commented that I had "everything you could need in there except for gas..."

We spoke for a bit on the side of the road, and it turned out he knew a former cadet, from the area.  His impression about CAP had come solely through this young man, who was a good kid, but, well...anyway, he actually stopped by the unit a while later and as fate would have it, two of the unit's members were out working on the trailer.

I understand his impression of CAP was significantly changed around 0130 when he finally left talking about coming back to a meeting and possibly joining.

He has contacts in LE and FD and resources of his own to bring to the table as well (lots of pretty flatbeds you can use to ferry sandbags and people in flooded areas, etc).

This is just one of a growing number of examples where our hard work is starting to pay off, and we are able to take advantage of opportunities when they pop up.

[WVOES]

I am the WV SAR Coordinator...I would very much have CAP involved as much as possible in our efforts to improve our SAR capabilities....we are currently setting a training standard that may not be NASAR but will be just as good....in 2009 I want to get as many people trained to the basic level as possible.  As for fitting into NIMS and ICS...it would not be a problem...you would use the same personnel and span of control during ops....you would just be given mission assignments by the Ops Officer or Incident Commander...any questions....email... bill.d.kershner@wv.gov.

[DNall]

^ I do appreciate that. We're always happy to work with states to meet their requirements and improve ourselves as a SaR responder. At the same time, we have to be focused on a national standard, and getting it implemented for all our members, not just the select few that are able to partake in your training program.

ergo...

Personnel/span-of-control references an org chart, not a training standard.

Those personnel first have to meet the qualification requirements to hold down those posts, and CAP's current minimum standards do not.

That also doesn't address field personnel, which again do not currently meet the standards FEMA is putting out there to standardize to. I realize it's not black & white, but we're not really that close.

You also mentioned "not NASAR, but just as good." I'll trust you on that, BUT... The problem is it's made up internal training that doesn't mean anything to anyone outside. So say WV certifies these people, great. Does that mean anything to TX, or FEMA? You're self-certifying people. Now I need to know your evaluators are certified by an outside standard. Then you're telling other agencies/states/feds to trust your certifications w/ no oversight or standardization.

You see how that can be a problem?

If I'm a US forestry service IC, thinking about risk mgmt when I decide what resources to send out versus unqualified people that get hurt/lost/whatever & I have to put the main search on hold to come take care of them. Why do I take CAP at it's word (or WV) when making that call, especially if I have other options that I KNOW are competent because they have credentials I understand?

Again assuming you're 100% correct & training even above NASAR & all those other requirements... As that outside overall IC, here's CAP offering me teams. Are all CAP teams created equal? Maybe your guys really know their stuff, but that doesn't equate to all CAP teams being competent/capable. How can I as that outside IC tell the difference?

Certainly you can do your own thing inside your state, but that doesn't solve the bigger problem for a nationwide federal response agency like CAP.

[Larry Mangum]

We also need to remember that NASAR is not the end all.  While attending Inland SAR School, the AF Lt Col teaching the class was just as derogatory toward them as he was CAP and non of the County or State SAR Coordinators attending the course seemed to disagree with him. What was more important to them, was that we come as team players and truly be qualified to do what we say we can do. It does not take NASAR certification to do that.

I am a member of the team rewriting CAPR 60-3 and we will be looking closely at the SQTR shortly. If you have good constructive comments please drop me a private email and I will pass them on to the working group. 

BTW, I am not against NASAR certification, just the expense of it.

[_]

I agree that NASAR isn't the ultimate standard, but it's a very good national standard.  On the civilian team I'm a member of we use the NASAR standard.  The other teams in this area don't use NASAR.  The NASAR standard is a good standard and I think it would be good to try to emulate the things included in the NASAR standard.  I also view the testing standards and the way the tests are conducted as being excelent.  The cost and availability of NASAR evaluators makes it difficult to fully endorse CAP going that route.  I do feel that the material covered by NASAR materials should be part of CAP's standard. 

A major thing to watch out for, if CAP tries to adopt the NASAR standard without modification, is the gear list.  Their gear list is worse than ours, and that's saying something.  I put together a complete pack for SARTECH 2 and it ended up weighing around 30 pounds without water.  Whether we change the gear list or not, there needs to be something saying the list can be modified, by adding or removing items, at a local level.

[RiverAux]

I do feel that the material covered by NASAR materials should be part of CAP's standard. 

I haven't found anything significant in NASAR's program that isn't being covered in some fashion by ours other than the rope work.  Given that we are severely restricted from doing any rope-based rescue that stuff is useless to us.  But, if there is something we're lacking in comparison that I missed, I'm for including it in ours. 

[RiverAux]

Big GSAR in PA with major CAP involvement -- http://www.cap.gov/visitors/news/cap_news_online/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&nodeID=6192&newsID=4881&year=2008&month=10

Note that one of the CAP units is developing a canine SAR team in accordance with accepted national standards....

[_]

I do feel that the material covered by NASAR materials should be part of CAP's standard. 

I haven't found anything significant in NASAR's program that isn't being covered in some fashion by ours other than the rope work.  Given that we are severely restricted from doing any rope-based rescue that stuff is useless to us.  But, if there is something we're lacking in comparison that I missed, I'm for including it in ours. 

UTM, types of searches (loose grid, tight grid, etc), tracking, more in depth nav stuff.

Also rescue ops involving ropes does not automatically mean it's high angle.  There is a lot of rope rescue that falls into the world of semi-tech.  Semi-tech is pretty much any time where you can stand on the ground without needing a rope to support you.  In these cases the rope is used to add an extra measure of safety and to make things like moving a stokes easier.  Discounting learning knots and such because we don't do high angle rescue isn't a good reason.  There are plenty of times where we may need to assist in a rescue where knowledge of knots and rope work is needed.

[Tubacap]

Big GSAR in PA with major CAP involvement -- http://www.cap.gov/visitors/news/cap_news_online/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&nodeID=6192&newsID=4881&year=2008&month=10

Note that one of the CAP units is developing a canine SAR team in accordance with accepted national standards....

PAWG just did another GSAR OP almost at the same time with different personnel in another part of the state.  End result was not awesome, but the mission itself ran excessively smoothly and I was never so pleased to work with COORDINATED teams that involved not only CAP personnel, but also the variety of emergent volutneers and fire departments that typically are the bulk of the response to a missing person search.

[DNall]

NASAR cost availability is an issue, and it isn't the only option. However, if CAP were to select NASAR as the best of those options & deliver it via CAP instructors, then it could be doable. We can do our own equiv training if we want too. However, that's just one item on the list. What we need to adopt is the overall list, and a plan to reach it universally for GTM3s across the country. That list looks like this....

Team standards: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/508-8_search_and_rescue_resources.pdf

Individual standards: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/sar_jobtitle_111806.pdf

Specifically:

SAR Job Title 35:  Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician
Description:  A Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician is a member of a Wilderness SAR Team who searches for and rescues those in trouble in urban/suburban as well as other environments.

REQUISITE CRITERIA
The table below lists minimum requisite criteria, based on existing protocols and standards, for a Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician to participate in the NIMS Integration Center's National Emergency Responder Credentialing System.

Category
Criteria
Training

Fulfillment of requirement(s) as stated in the following standard(s):
1. MRA 105 Operational Level; or ASTM F-2209 or NASAR SAR Tech II; or equivalent
2. NFPA 472 HazMat Awareness and/or OSHA 1910.120(Q)(6)(i), HazMat     Awareness Training or equivalent basic instruction on responding to and operating in a CBRNE incident (Online course avail from AFIADL)
3. Bloodborne/Airborne Pathogens per OSHA
4. DOI AM B-3 or equivalent

Completion of the following baseline criteria:
5. OSHA 1910.120 and/or 1910.134(f) Respiratory Protection
6. Risk assessment
7. Hazard mitigation, including lifting, dealing with animals and possible armed subjects and criminals
8. PPE for 4 seasons in any of the anticipated areas of operation
9. Use of related SAR tools and devices
10. Various SAR Standards
11. Legal Aspects of SAR EMS, SAR risk, liability, insurance, and injury and death of members
12. SAR ethics, including dealing with families, confidentiality and media
13. Team and crew safety issues
14. For drivers: Driver's safety
15. Personal and team physical, medical and behavioral wellness, fitness, and limitations
16. Wilderness weather
17. Survival and bivouac in four seasons in any anticipated areas of operations
18. Use of other resources including canines and other animals
19. Recognizing possible child predator situations
20. Awareness for search around swift/flood water, underground spaces
21. HazMat awareness to include drug labs
22. Animal technical rescue awareness
23. Documentation and record keeping for SAR and EMS
24. Field Communications, interoperability, equipment, proper use of phones, radios, data
25. Medical aid of self, team members, and customers
26. Customer evacuations, choices, methods, equipment
27. Helicopter operations in SAR for all seasons in all anticipated areas of   operations,  including;
* Types of Helicopters in SAR
* Risk Continuum: low risk to higher risk helicopter use
* Related FAA regulations
* Personal capabilities and limitations and preflight prep
* Helicopter capabilities and limitations
* Safety Briefing/ Aircraft familiarization, storage, Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) introduction
* Safety rules, dos and don'ts
* Helicopter-related Communications for SAR personnel
* Night operations
* Customers on helicopters, control of, consent issues
* Basic emergency procedures on ground and in flight
* Uses of helicopter adjuncts, such as NVG and FLIR
* Basic physiological effects of flight on personnel, customers and equipment
* Special-Use issues, hazards, and mitigation
* Ingress and egress training and practice in all methods to be used on operations, such as hover ingress-egress, etc.

Completion of the following courses and/or curricula:
27. ICS-100: Introduction to ICS
28. ICS-200: Basic ICS
29. FEMA IS-700: NIMS, An Introduction
30. CERT (G-371) or equivalent for disaster related responses

Experience
1. Finger print and background check
2. Participation in an AHJ currency program

Physical/ Medical Fitness
Completion of the following baseline criteria:
1. Medical requirements established by the AHJ
2. Minimum physical fitness standards as required by the AHJ, such as:
* MRA 105.1 Fitness
* CO WSAR Fitness
* NWCG Pack Test "Arduous"
* MCSOMR/CAMRA Mountain Rescue Specific Physical Ability Test (MRSPAT)
* NIMS WSAR Type II and IV Fitness
3.     CDC/ WHO recommended inoculations

Certification
1. Any of the following or equivalent:
* MRA 105.1 Operational Level
* NASAR SAR Technician II or greater
* Colorado State SAR Board WSAR Technician Type II or greater
* Appropriate equivalent State certification


SAR Job Title 35:  Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician

RECOMMENDED CRITERIA
The recommended criteria that follow are intended to supplement previously-listed requisite criteria for the NIMS Integration Center's consideration and referral to organizations, as appropriate.
The table below lists the SAR Working Group's recommended criteria for a Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician   to participate in the NIMS Integration Center's National Emergency Responder Credentialing System. These criteria incorporate and/or modify existing protocols and standards and/or propose their development where they do not exist.

Category
Criteria
Training
1. NFPA 472 HazMat Operations and/or OSHA 1910.120(Q)(6)(ii), HazMat     Operations Training or equivalent basic instruction on responding to and operating in a CBRNE incident
2. Recertification every 3 years
3. Minimum of Wilderness First Aid     

Experience
1. Position taskbooks that validate and verify (by AHJ) demonstrated ability to perform required skills in exercises and/or actual incidents
2. Participation in currency program per AHJ

Physical/ Medical Fitness
Fulfillment of requirement(s) as stated in the following standard(s): ?
1. NFPA 1582, Standard on Medical Requirements for Fire Fighters47, or AHJ equavilent

Certification
Recertification every 3 years

[KyCAP]

NASAR is a new thing for me to come to understand per my other thread.. http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=5576.0

A couple of things.   It looks like with a couple of letters of reference and completing the NASAR courses then you can be authorized to instruct them.    Also, looks like NASAR doesn't have an "abundance" of their instructors according to the web site.    There are NONE in Ky for example.

NASAR book store does have some "more academic" resources for SAR than what I can find in CAP realms.   As such I just dropped $200 on "books" and guides to do some research of my own on their materials.   They came in the mail on Friday with the "T-Shirt".

It does seem that interweaving the SQTR obstacles into a program that would lead to SARTECH certification knocks out two things for the membership and only increases the value (and attraction by new members).   Just have to figure it out.. like here: http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=1946.0

[RiverAux]

NASAR does have some decent books available that are certainly more helpful in terms of planning and running a GSAR mission than anything CAP has.  But, then again CAP doesn't even have an actual manual on how to conduct a missing airplane search even though it is supposed to be the thing we're the experts in. 

[KyCAP]

Maybe we could co-author it and sell on the NASAR store..

[sarmed1]

when we went to NASAR certification for TXWG GSARSS, the local evaluator dude passed on some very usefull info:

CAP/CAP instructors could receive some type of special evaluator rating or special membership catagory for CAP that  in essence they would be able to evaluate the parctical tests for whatever they are quiaifed in (ie SARTECH II, I etc) under the supervision of a regular NASAR coordinator, (dont know if thats direct or "hands off" superviosion) the catch, it could be only for CAP members.  (which also eliminates anything but the NASAR cost for the test)  I dont remember the exact details or appropriate "title" for the membership catagory but that would make meeting NASAR standard much more realistic.

mk

[_]

under the supervision of a regular NASAR coordinator,

I don't see us going with the NASAR standard even in the manner you speak of.  In each possibility CAP SAR would be entirely dependent on a civilian agency and it's representatives (my understanding is that NASAR coordinators act as contractors for NASAR when they conduct evaluations).  I think we'll probably end up copying the NASAR program but use the "or equivalent" clause to create our own credentialing system.