Yes, CRASH is a fire-rescue focused registered charity in Alberta and is also registering as a not-for-profit and registered charity with the CRA.

Yes - either through a paid-on-call basis (like an honourarium), hourly, or salary - all depending on donations and operational expenses. Like other not-for-profits, CRASH will aim to have paid professional staff to respond to complex or challenging emergencies in rural and remote settings. This will ensure that advanced capabilities are guaranteed to be immediately available whenever they are needed.

At present, this particular region of Alberta experiences thousands of emergency calls annually - however the residential populations remain low in such a vast and rural region. Many of these calls result from non-resident area users (such as tourists / backcountry users, seasonal populations, and commuting workers). This means that while emergencies are frequent, the local communities’ tax bases are low - which is primarily how traditional emergency services are funded.

By raising funds via donations, residents, area users, stakeholders, companies, and visitors alike can contribute directly to increased public safety specialty capabilities and coverage throughout the region they use - which also directly supports the existing emergency services of Police, Fire and Ambulance.

CRASH will fill a significant and clearly identified gap in rural first response in AB; urban centers have paid fire-rescue specialist teams they can leverage anytime, however rural regions typically do not.

With increasing populations and area users – including backcountry users – in a region that faces a plethora of existing and emerging natural and man-made hazards, emergency response complexity and frequency are increasing and would benefit from increased first responder presence, specialty resources and capabilities.

CRASH’s focus is on providing response capabilities via specialists proficient in topics like complex technical rescue, unique auto extrication, collapse/debris zone operations, complex terrain rescue, whitewater/ complex swift water rescue, advanced field medicine, and hazard-specific response tactics (typically needed during events like tornado, flood and WUI fires) to add to & expand (not duplicate) existing first response capabilities in the region.

CRASH will focus on the capabilities other agencies are unable to, but that can be critical during the more high-risk, but low frequency events. These are slightly different, but complimentary skillsets, to Fire, SAR, and STARS – who primarily focus on maintaining more generalized response capabilities targeting a wider variety of skillsets, or like STARS, have very specific and entirely different mandates.

While there are specialist fire-rescue teams in larger cities, these are not typically available or able to respond to remote regions or beyond certain boundaries. They also vary in they types of specialist capabilities and equipment they maintain, and can take hours to deploy to a region and terrain they may be unfamiliar with. CRASH will fill a gap in first response that is complimentary to EMS, volunteer SAR or fire-rescue department mandates. CRASH focuses on retaining advanced critical tactical skillsets and unique specialties that target the region’s hazards and will have the largest benefit for all first response agencies and the public.

CRASH respects and will work in conjunction with EMS, SAR and fire departments, supporting their mandates while helping to improve public safety and expanding the response capabilities available to the region through their own unique but complimentary mandate. CRASH Team members are all also volunteer SAR and fire department members who will continue to serve their communities and agencies.

The skillsets that CRASH Team members will retain take years of dedicated training and research to achieve proficiency and maintain expertise in. They require extensive, regular practice to maintain, costly equipment and certification, and a high level of aptitude and fitness by participants to undertake. The amount of time and investment these specialties take to develop and maintain is often not justifiable when response agencies have so many other skillsets to maintain and are limited by budgetary and time constraints, as well as staffing.

These agencies also often operate under a volunteer system for a variety of reasons, which means responders who may have particular specialties may not be available to respond when applicable incidents occur.