County Fire Department May Seek Grant for Search and Rescue Team

Floods, fires, mudslides and an earthquake are among the natural disasters that have wreaked havoc in Ventura County, prompting fire officials to train extensively in urban search and rescue tactics.

Now the Ventura County Fire Department wants a chance to establish an elite, federally funded unit to respond to such disasters.

Next week, the Board of Supervisors is set to consider allowing the department to apply for one of two openings for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force.

There are eight urban search and rescue task force teams in California, and an additional 17 nationwide.

If the department gets FEMA approval, it could qualify for up to $500,000 in grants for a two-year pilot project to set up and train a 62-member local team that would include not only firefighters but doctors, paramedics and structural engineers.

Each team member would be trained in urban search and rescue techniques and could be called upon to respond within six hours to any disaster nationwide. The team would have 124 alternate members.

“We feel we have a pretty good shot at [the grant],” said Assistant Fire Chief Dave Festerling.

Although the urban search and rescue team would be coordinated by the Ventura County Fire Department, it would likely use personnel from fire and law enforcement agencies in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, Festerling said.

The grant application has to be submitted to the California Office of Emergency Services by Jan. 9, he said. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider authorizing the application at its meeting on Tuesday.

After the Northridge earthquake, the Board of Supervisors decided to spend about $150,000 of its Proposition 172 funds to train county firefighters in urban search and rescue, but if FEMA approves the grant the county may have to spend an additional $100,000 for training through 1999, Festerling said. Proposition 172 was a special assessment approved by California voters in 1993 to provide guaranteed funding for law enforcement and emergency services personnel.

Supervisor John Flynn said his only concern with the plan is that the urban search and rescue team does not duplicate the already existing expertise of other county agencies.

The Sheriff’s Department has a small search and rescue team, and several of the local city fire departments have such expertise as well.

But Festerling said the county Fire Department has already contacted agencies in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties to ensure that the task force will not duplicate existing capabilities.

“We’ve gotten a pretty enthusiastic response so far,” he said.

The department already has a team of firefighters trained to rescue people from collapsed buildings and high-rise structures, but training would need to be dramatically expanded to have a full-scale search and rescue team able to respond to disasters nationwide, said Fire Capt. Sam Turner, who helps train the department’s firefighters in urban search and rescue techniques.

Extensive logistics planning would be needed to ensure quick response and transportation, and the team would also need such things as specialized listening devices and video equipment for locating trapped victims, Turner said.

In addition, all of FEMA’s task force teams must be self-sufficient for up to 72 hours at a time and able to work around the clock for up to 10 days, he said.

“That will take an extensive amount of training and logistics to pull off,” Turner said.