Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service has been a member of UK ISAR since 1993 and can be requested to mobilise to sudden on-set disasters (mainly earthquakes), participate in training/exercising and undertake international capacity building programmes in disaster-prone countries. Lancashire has over the years deployed to Macedonia, Turkey, Mozambique, India, Algeria, Kashmir, Haiti and Japan.
The deployment of the UK ISAR team enables survivors to be located and rescued in situations where local teams may not have the technical capacity to, and/or may not be able to prioritise over multiple other critical demands in other affected areas where there may be a higher chance of a successful rescue in the timeframe.
UK ISAR deploys on average every 2.8 years to disaster missions all over the world; the most recent being Indonesia, Haiti, Japan, New Zealand, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Nepal. The team operates on a 4 month on/off rota system that includes search dogs, medics, engineers and veterinary personnel.
The team mainly deploys under the auspices of the United Nations but it also supports the UK’s commitment to the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism and offers Heavy (70 persons) and Medium (48 persons) modules. It is one of 47 UN classified Search & Rescue teams from across the world.