MAWWFRS Pass UK ISAR International Classification With Flying Colours
Beyond the Service’s fire and rescue capabilities in Mid and West Wales, some members of the Service volunteer as part of the wider United Kingdom International Search and Rescue Team (UK ISAR).
Providing an international search and rescue capability for the UK Government, which sees the volunteers on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and could see them deployed to an accident or disaster anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.
During the past decade, structural collapses caused by earthquakes have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. While the majority of the survivors of these events are found and extricated relatively quickly, some are subjected to prolonged periods of entrapment before they are rescued.
MAWWFRS is 1 of the 15 Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) which create a UK Government supported team that is available to assist in sudden onset disasters overseas; often involving search and rescue in urbanised areas. Over the past 7 years, members of the team have deployed to disasters in Indonesia, Haiti, Japan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Malawi.
International Search and Rescue Teams are required to undertake an International classification every five years. The team are assessed against 132 individual components over a 36-hour period. 7 members of MAWWFRS UKISAR team were part of a 69 person UK rescue team which took part in an international search and rescue advisory group re-classification from the 25th to 29th May in Germany. The team were successful in all areas of disaster response, from mobilisation through to rescue activities and demobilisation. The team were judged as outstanding, gaining 6 areas of best practice.
This is the highest score achieved globally during an assessment and confirms the team’s status as one of the very best USAR teams in the world.
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