Specialized First Response for Extraordinary Emergencies

The CRASH Team is a new, first responder-led initiative designed to expand emergency response capabilities in rural and remote regions of the province of Alberta by providing local first responders, communities and area users with immediate access to critical specialized and hazard-specific tactical support in the face of increasingly complex emergencies, more frequent and impactful natural hazards, and the growing number of accidents in remote and rugged backcountry environments. To do this, a small group of experienced first responders are putting together the very first Complex Response And Severe Hazards (CRASH) Team and situating it in rural west-central Alberta to assist in the busy, naturally hazardous Rocky Mountain slopes region.

How the CRASH Team works:

The CRASH Team will be a multidisciplinary unit of highly specialized first responders with a variety of advanced technical capabilities, brought together to form an all-hazards tactical response team. Responding upon request, the CRASH team will support existing EMS, police, fire, and SAR agencies by deploying specialized equipment and fire-rescue expertise and capabilities to enhance public and responder safety while expanding local response capacity.

Based in a rural community and available 24/7, the team will deploy upon request to assist with complex or high-demand incidents requiring additional tactical capabilities and operational support. The CRASH (Complex Response and Severe Hazards) Team focuses on high-impact emergencies such as wildfires, floods, landslides, tornadoes, structural collapse, and operations in challenging environments like whitewater, vertical / remote terrain, and severe weather. The team will also proactively monitor, plan, and train for regional hazards, staying ahead of emerging risks. Staffed by experienced local fire-rescue professionals with advanced skills and backgrounds in fields like meteorology, engineering, and hydrology, CRASH will be well equipped to manage the most demanding emergency situations.

The CRASH Team Charity:

To fund this specialized not-for-profit team and resource, the CRASH Team Charity has been created. The Team will rely entirely on donations for equipment, training, apparatus, operations, staff, and more. This approach means that CRASH Team services can be provided at no cost for public safety agencies and the CRASH Team, and any future teams, can remain flexible and able to adjust services depending on the level of their funding.

The Need for Specialized Response Capabilities:

After responding to thousands of emergency calls in rural western Alberta for well over a decade, a couple of firefighters noticed the increasing need for additional response skillsets and specialized equipment during certain responses. These incidents were not usually the traditional fire-rescue responses, but instead the most complex, remote, or unique situations - such as vertical backcountry vehicle extrications or high hazard swiftwater river rescues during flooding, and structural search and rescue after tornado events. It was during these less frequent but highly impactful emergencies that it was apparent that existing response agencies became limited by resources, capacity and time, and that additional specialized skillsets and tools would be extremely beneficial or even imperative for successful responses. This is when the CRASH Team idea was formed, with the intent to bring and retain specialty response capabilities and capacity to this high-hazard region of western Alberta that has repeatedly demonstrated a use for such a resource.

Establishing the CRASH Team in this location would ensure that advanced tactical capabilities and resources are consistently available, able to respond and access incident sites rapidly even during the most challenging conditions, and that CRASH crew have local ground-level knowledge that is imperative to allow for effective and efficient responses. This team is not intended to duplicate or replace any existing response capabilities or resources already in an area - but instead offers expanded and hazard-specific response capabilities targeted as most beneficial to the area’s responses, to assist first response agencies immediately in the initial hours of an emergency. This is the most critical time window of an emergency, when seconds matter most, response tone is set and success often determined.

The initial CRASH Team aims to be situated in west-central Alberta, near the Rocky Mountains, due to the area’s abundance of natural hazards, remote and dynamic terrain, rural populations, and growing tourism, recreation, and area use. This team’s technical capabilities will include structural collapse extrication, advanced swift-water/whitewater rescue, vertical/complex terrain rescue/extrication, and mass-casualty response - skillsets targeted to assist existing first response agencies with emergencies involving tornadoes, severe storms, floods, mountainous terrain, river systems, large-impact event potential and more complex emergency incidents.  If this pilot team proves to be successful and a beneficial resource, it can serve as a model for the formation of additional teams throughout the province and beyond.