USAR team structure

Funding

Funding for crewing is provided by Central Government but Fire and Rescue Services are allowed to decide for themselves what crewing systems to adopt. This allowed Hampshire to try some innovative solutions for providing a capability in excess of the national requirements, while also achieving maximum benefits for HFRS and the people of Hampshire.

Structure

The structure of Hampshire’s USAR team was originally based around the personnel who voluntarily formed our UKFSSART team. It was vital that the extensive training, expertise and experience of these people was utilised in the development of this new capability. HFRS also wanted to get USAR trained personnel to any incident in Hampshire quickly to maximise the benefits of having this expertise. A team structure and mobilising strategy was developed. This allows:

USAR team members to quickly get to USAR related incidents to provide assessment and safety advice for the initial crews.
rapid mobilisation for national scale incidents where the team has to assemble centrally before mobilising.

The team

The full team has 33 operational members and two non-operational support staff. The team is then split into three sections (red, white and blue) of 11 each and rotate on a fortnightly basis.

USAR Organisation Chart

The rotation has one section on immediate call with all 11 members required to respond. The next section is on standby call for that fortnight, which means they are available to fill any gaps in the first call team in case of sickness or courses, etc. The third section is on a complete stand down period. This system ensures a minimum response of 11 and this can be increased quickly by the availability of the second team. In extreme situations the section that is stood down could also be recalled to duty.

The wholetime staff work a flexible 42-hour week. They do occasional evenings and weekends when awareness training is delivered to retained stations or there are team exercises. The wholetime staff consists of a Station Manager, three Watch Managers, three Crew Managers and three Firefighters. They are also split between the three sections and manage day-to-day activities, deliver training, maintain the vehicles and develop new systems, etc.

All team members must be fully qualified USAR technicians but they then develop expertise in at least one specific area. This has proved essential in achieving the level of expertise we believe is needed to successfully carry out some of the technical operations required.

Our minimum target for specialist skills in each section of 11 people is as follows:

Command Skills
1 x USAR Adviser (USAR trained officer), 1 x Watch Manager, 1 x Crew Manager.
Advanced Shoring Specialist
1 at a level above the shoring training delivered at the Fire Service College.
Timber Shoring Operatives
Every team member.
Hot Cutting Specialist
1 trained locally by demolition contractors.
Breaking and Breaching Specialist
1 specialist locally trained (also the hot cutter).
Lifting and Rigging Specialist
1 qualified to industry standard ‘Banksman’ and ‘Appointed Person’.
Technical Search Management
1 qualified by FEMA Technical Search and Search Team Manager courses.
Chainsaw Specialist
2 qualified to windblown tree standard.
Confined Space
1 supervisor plus all team members trained as operatives.
Search Dog Team
1 graded dog and handler.
Technical Rope Rescue
4 advanced rope trained members.
Trench Rescue
1 specialist and all team members trained as operatives.
Logistics
1 member allocated to this area.

At an incident the specialists most relevant to the task will adopt the prominent role.

They also become the instructors and assessors in their specialist area to ensure the rest of the team have suitable levels of general training in the subject.

Some specialist roles are being developed nationally for the USAR project but Hampshire is quite a long way down this road already and continues to seek out opportunities to bring higher levels of expertise to the USAR environment.