What We Do
Search and Rescue Alberta teams can respond to numerous types of incidents, in almost any environment, with various capabilities and specialized resources. On any given day, a Search and Rescue Alberta team in Alberta may be providing any one of the following services for the province:
- Searching for lost and missing persons (e.g. finding a lost child in the woods or an urban search for someone with dementia or a despondent teenager)
- Rescuing someone in distress in the backcountry (e.g. administering first aid and treating for hypothermia)
- Providing an evidence search for the RCMP (e.g. searching for human remains or weapons)
- Assisting in a civil emergency such as flooding or forest fire (e.g. evacuations, and assisting First Nations Emergency Operations Centres)
To meet the diverse needs of individuals, teams have several capabilities including but not limited to:
- Ground SAR (urban, rural and remote)
- Inland water SAR
- Swiftwater
- Flat water
- Ice
- Diving
- Mountain operations (Avalanche and Alpine)
- Evidence search
- Helicopter operations
- First aid and medical first response
- Civil emergency and all hazards disaster response
- Recovery
- Tracking
- Technical rope rescue (high and low angle)
- Survival
- Cave rescue
- Canine
- Canine human remains detection
- Canine water operations for drowning subjects
- Canine live find area search
- Canine disaster detection for survivors and deceased
Search and Rescue Alberta teams also provided preventative education to the public to keep people safe and reduce the likelihood and severity of search and rescue incidents. For more information, please visit Public Education.