Why and How to Prepare for a Search in the Wilderness

BY IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN

WILDERNESS SEARCH HAS BEEN A LOW-PROBAbility/high-risk response for emergency responders for decades. Responses using fire department personnel, especially volunteer departments, are often prolonged, intensive, and inefficient. Responders not properly trained or equipped for the mission expended many personnel hours and sustained injury and, rarely, death while trying to carry out this mission. Search appears to be a simple task.

You go out and look for somebody who, hopefully, wants to be found. Personnel involved in direct field efforts or incident management must have minimal skills to lower the risks to the responders and increase the probability of success.

Many improvements in technique and operational models were developed in the 1980s and 1990s, only to be forgotten as response rates dropped and the personnel who developed these improvements retired, taking corporate memory with them. The purpose of this article is to refresh responders’ memories and to relate new developments in this area.

From 1979 through 1995, I was a primary volunteer search manager (operations and planning) in the Southeast Pennsylvania region. During this period, I responded to an average of 12 multiperiod searches per year in the region. From 1995 to 2005, the search subject tended to be a walk-away from an institution and was located in hours, often in the same location. These searches have declined as facilities improved patient tracking. In 2012, there were four requests for standbys. All four subjects were believed to be victims of foul play, and prosecutions are in progress. In contrast, many persons merely disappear, raising no attention beyond a family effort to post flyers.

Agencies that have high-risk terrain that requires specialist responses may consider these runs to be search and rescue (SAR); in reality, they are primarily rescue. These situations include water rescue, cave and nonworking mine rescue, and alpine or mountain rescue. These terrains require specialist-level training, there tend to be incidents in the same areas, and frequently the position of the victim is localized during the dispatch process.

DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS SEARCH

Wilderness search is undertaken on an emergency basis to locate, extricate, and remove from danger one or more persons who have been declared lost or missing by an appropriate jurisdiction. The lost person may be overdue from a trip, reported missing in a roadless area, or a survivor of an accident. Unlike urban search, which concentrates on collapsed buildings, wilderness search concentrates on the search subject. The terrain to be covered may be park land, forest, recreational areas, undeveloped land, or even an urban environment not involving collapsed buildings.

As is true of any incident, what began as an innocent emergency service response may end up as a criminal investigation. Just as an arson fire starts as a routine fire and then requires preservation of notes, logs, and the scene, a search starts as an emergency response but may end with locating a subject who had been assaulted or even killed and an extensive police follow-up to resolve legal issues and to prosecute suspects. If the subject is recovered dead or seriously injured, the coroner or other authorities may require an inquiry into the incident.

The Wilderness Search Incident cycle is similar to all incident cycles. Prior to the incident, the response organization analyzes the risks, possible locations, training, and equipment needed to carry out the mission. What may not be as obvious to responders who have not dealt with multiagency, personnel-intensive, longer-duration missions is that the search part of the mission necessitates a high level of incident organization and takes place in areas not considered part of the wilderness. The incident ramps up and then, based on agency criteria, may be suspended without positive results. During demobilization of resources, the fatigue factor can be significant. Despite the urge to go home immediately, personnel should be rested before they are released. The final stage is the after-action report and debriefing. The input from this stage is applied to a new risk assessment, and changes are made to the response plan as needed.

INCIDENT SITES

Most of us associate wilderness search with the hundreds of thousands of acres of desert, forest, or wilderness areas in the Western United States. However, there are large expanses of undeveloped land in some of the most urbanized areas in the United States. Inside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, are 9,400 acres of forest bought to protect surface water sources through 1900 or so. The area has not seen an ax since then. Various parts of Fairmount Park date back to the early 1800s; the last major acquisition was in the Pennypack watershed dating from 1905. The Philadelphia Art Museum was built on top of what was the city’s first major waterworks, which still exist below it in Fairmount Dam. Some of the park was used for the Centennial Exposition of 1876 where the electric light and telephone were introduced to the public.

There are state parks with thousands of acres. One Pennsylvania state park, French Creek, just had the largest forest fire in the state’s history in a fraction of its 7,500 acres surrounded by state forest and gamelands. One county park in Pennsylvania consists of 3,400 acres, 30 miles of trails, and connections to hundreds of miles of county trail system. Valley Forge National Historical Park, in the same county, covers 3,600 acres. The county trail system goes through it, across the Interstate from one of the largest shopping malls in the United States, a convention center, and a casino.

You must examine your response area to determine what kinds of undeveloped land it contains and determine if specialized rescue units may be needed to access this territory. Include private lands such as quarries, mill ponds, dams, and even railroad right-of-ways. Silt-settling basins, abandoned dams, and structures are other more unusual risks.

Will you need water recue units, cave rescue units, or perhaps technical or rope rescue resources to access this area, extricate a live patient, or retrieve a dead body? Other complications arise when dealing with railroads, environmental restrictions, or access controls. Areas in watershed-protection sites, reservoirs, and navigable rivers or waterways may require coordination with multiple agencies to gain access.

Who has jurisdiction may be uncertain. You may have to deal with local police, county police, state police, park police, the National Park Service (NPS) or National Forest Service (NFS), the Bureau of Land Management in the western states, various military authorities, the Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the railroad police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, fish and game agencies, and government officials. A recovery we made in a national park involved all of the above, including two counties worth of prosecutors, coroners, and associated fire and EMS providers because of concurrent jurisdiction.

SEARCH RESOURCES

Various search resources are available across the country. Determine what is available locally and at which trigger points in the incident action plan (IAP) additional resources will be requested.

People

Personnel are the most widely available resources. Various levels of training, from none to highly skilled investigators, are useful at some point. People put in the field should have minimal training in several areas:

• Situational awareness, the ability to recognize a trend in the field and other hazards that may be present.
• Clue awareness, the ability to recognize what clue relative to the search subject or evidence may indicate that the incident is not a search but a crime.
• Navigation and map reading.
• Communicating using the equipment or system used by the response jurisdiction.
• First aid and survival, including local hazards such as flora and fauna that are hazardous or venomous.
• Teamwork.
• Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) to the level required to understand assignments and the chain of command.
• Basic awareness or common sense to recognize when their skill level is not up to the task assigned individually or as a task group or task team.

The usual practice is to assign three to five persons to a task and to ensure that the team has a sufficient level of the skills needed. If possible, a person with knowledge of the local terrain (even if he has no other skills) should be assigned as well. These assignments are formalized using the unit task assignment form, ICS 204, if available. Currently under discussion in American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) F32 is the qualification of a task force or strike team leader and the assigning of a team of five resources to a single task. A search task is assigned to the small group, which operates similarly in organization to an engine or ladder company with a direct supervisor. Span of command creates a need for another level of supervision when five or more tasks are in the field.

Although this concept was originally applied to fire apparatus crews, each member of a task assignment may be an individual resource; thus, each task team assigned is either a strike force or a task force under a strict definition that indicated five resources have been combined. In practicality, wilderness search tasks will always be conducted by groups of disparate resources, and the need for specialized supervision develops at the group level, similar to a battalion chief or sector command on a fire.

Trackers are people who can read the marks left behind by a traveling person and determine direction and speed of travel. Often confused with the mythical Native American scout, these skilled personnel can be invaluable in detecting clues and tracking persons. The tracker is never deployed alone; the persons working with the tracker complete the skills requirements and operate as flankers to detect abrupt changes in direction. The U.S. Border Patrol is credited with having the most skilled trackers. The skill is a combination of being aware of visual clues (the track itself) and knowledge of human locomotion. It is a practical skill that requires much practice in the field.

A search manager must be able to separate reality from a tracker’s hunches or beliefs. The tracker’s reports must be clear and devoid of any myths or cult-like references in which some tracking schools may cloak their information.

Animals

Dogs, horses, or even pigs may be used to track people and detect clues related to the area, such as whether people live there. Handlers manage these animals. The handler and his animal form only one component of a task team and require support for the skills listed above.

• Dogs. They come in several varieties. There are always disputes as to which breed works best, but there is little dispute that a well-trained dog, with a skilled handler, can cover a lot of ground.
  • Tracking/trailing dogs follow the subject’s trail (shed dead skin or body fluids). They usually require a starting point or scent sample. To be effective, isolate and secure the point at which the subject was last seen or known to be, such as a car or a campsite, as you would a crime scene to keep other scents from contaminating the area. If a sample is used, have a crime scene technician or an arson investigator secure it in a manner that will reduce contamination. Bed sheets, night clothes, and underwear are all useful as samples. Many tracking/trailing dogs work on leash.
  • Air scent dogs detect any person as opposed to a particular person. They are usually worked off lead (loose, not under the physical control of the handler) and upwind. Because these dogs cannot distinguish between one person and another, the area must be cleared of all personnel. In a public park, this is often impossible.
  • Discriminating air scent dogs have been trained to discriminate among the scents detected. Used in three-person-plus-dog task teams, the dog may alert on a person. Once instructed to disregard the scent, it will not alert on that specific individual again. Thus, in an area with many people present, the handler can eliminate false positives as the search progresses.
  • Large sporting dogs usually make the best search dogs because they have been bred for hunting. However, consider the effect of a large dog charging up to a small subject and both parties’ reactions. This may be even more important if Doberman pinschers, German shepherds, or bull terriers are on the assignment. Water dogs may be a better choice. Dogs need protection for their paws and coats, depending on the terrain.
  • Tracking/trailing dogs have been used as long as bloodhounds and similar breeds have been available. Air scent dogs were introduced into the United States after World War II and became well accepted for police and search work by 1980. There are guidelines for evaluating an air scent dog, but there is no “ProBoard” for dogs beyond the Federal Emergency Management Agency collapsed building tests. Many volunteer search dog handlers may have no credentials and may not belong to an organized group or unit. This means that each requesting agency must evaluate the resource.
• Horses have been used to support searches for centuries. However, in the late 1980s, reports of horses scenting air and making finds began to circulate. By 1986, these reports were being studied by academic researchers. It was found that horses have a great ability to detect search subjects using a multitude of senses and then fusing the input. As a prey animal, the horse is always alert for threats. Until the threat is identified as a nonthreat, the horse tracks the threat and signals his rider as he would alert other horses in his herd to the danger.

The horse has several advantages over a dog: it uses all its senses, not just the nose; it can detect downwind as well as upwind scents; and it does discriminate. The communication between horse and rider is very subtle but always accurate. Additionally, the horse carries the gear and the searcher. ASTM International has been publishing voluntary mounted search and rescue standards for some time.

A primary difficulty with using mounted searchers is the logistics involved. The responder must hitch up a trailer, load the animal and tack, establish a quiet area of containment on arrival, and often work with ground search personnel whose concept of mounted operations is a John Ford cavalry movie. Horses establish relationships with their riders and owners based on subtle communication patterns. Logistically, the base manager must provide substantial space for parking, exercise, water, feed, hay, bedding, and area cleanup afterward. Unlike that of dogs, however, horse waste is not dangerous to humans and can be composted.

Wheeled Vehicles

A basic problem with using wheeled vehicles, regardless of type, is that they are often prohibited in a wilderness area. In the East, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), 4×4s, and even bicycles are restricted to designated paths or are totally prohibited from use. In Pennsylvania, ATVs may only be operated on the owner’s property or with the written permission of the property owner and must be titled, carry registration plates, and carry insurance. Bicycles are treated as vehicles and are restricted to paved streets or bike lanes and paths.

A lack of areas in which to hold exercises makes it difficult for vehicle operators to become adequately trained in search and affects their vehicle operation skills. The opportunities to train with these resources are often severely limited, which results in reduced efficiency. It is difficult to integrate infrastructure if you cannot train together.

Technology

Some technology may also be available to assist the search effort. The search subject may be located by detecting his body heat against a cooler background by using infrared or thermal imaging devices. Test the thermal imaging camera (TIC), if one is carried on your fire apparatus, to determine if it is sensitive enough to detect live people wearing ordinary clothes against the normal ground background. Although the field of view is limited, the TIC is commonly available on the search scene. Forward looking infrared (FLIR) is mounted on a ground or air vehicle, and a skilled operator will detect live subjects in most terrains. In some areas, military-quality sensors mounted on aircraft or drones may also be used. Some specialized sensors can even detect differences in vegetation from aerial views. Synthetic aperture radar can see underground for several feet.

Many searches have been reduced to prearrival instructions by technology. Most public safety answering points (PSAPS) have Phase II cellular phone location capabilities. If the position of the lost person can be determined by the cell phone location, the person can be talked out to a pickup zone or back to the parking lot where he left his vehicle.

Another device is a satellite-based distress beacon. The current version uses a UHF frequency data burst. The data burst identifies the beacon and may contain a global positioning system position. Generally, the beacon’s data bursts are detected by a satellite that passes overhead every two hours, the ownership of the beacon is validated, and the beacon’s location is determined within feet. A pickup team can go out to the subject’s location.

Maps are critical in managing a search. U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps are available online for free downloading in a pdf-compatible format. The 7.5-minute quad is the most useful size.

DISPATCH, MOBILIZATION, AND SIZE-UP

Dispatch, mobilization, and size-up are often conducted in parallel. The dispatch center receives the call and initiates a wilderness search protocol. In addition to the usual what and where, the dispatcher should obtain a description of the subject, how long since the last contact was made with the subject, and the subject’s planned activity: route to be hiked, campgrounds to be used, fishing, and birding, for example. The dispatch should include a description of the subject’s physical characteristics, the clothes the subject was wearing, and of any equipment the subject may have had with him, including a vehicle.

Send out as soon as possible an “attempt-to-locate” flash message. The local response authority should also receive the call taker’s notes and any other information developed. Use a preplanned command post location or staging area for mobilization. The local incident commander (IC) will need space to establish a base, a staging area, and associated activities. Unlike a small structural fire, the IC does not have to see the incident from his command location. Base the size-up for the incident on the survival factors dispatch provides. The physical description and medical history of the search subject, his survival skill set, the subject’s equipment, the terrain, and the weather all play a part in developing the size-up and determining the probability of the subject’s being alive when the search starts. Many field operations guides (FOG) use a 21-point scale based on questions that have answer values of 1, 2, or 3. The higher the score, the more urgent the search.

Because search resources are not often local and may have extended mobilization and travel times, the IC must size up the incident and decide quickly if it is going to outgrow his initial assignment. Automatic mutual aid with adjacent jurisdictions for personnel, aircraft, mounted units, dogs, and investigators may be designed into the dispatch. The IC decides if the call for mutual aid will go out or be held off.

Verifying the call is difficult. With a fire call, the officer in charge of the first response unit either finds fire, finds evidence that the fire is out, or doesn’t find fire. A few minutes after arrival, the initial report describes the scene and advises if the follow-on resources will be needed. The reporting party in a search case does not know where the subject is. The only known fact is that the subject is not where he is supposed to be. Investigators must verify the data reported.

• Did the subject actually go on the trip as planned?
• Is there evidence the subject reached the trailhead and proceeded from there?
• Did the subject check in with park personnel at any time? If so, where?
• Is the subject at home/work/school or with friends?
• Is the subject at any known hangouts?
• Is the subject out of the area?
• Where is the subject’s vehicle, personal property?

Subjects often tell friends they are going hiking or make it look like they are recreating locally while traveling to a distant location. At least one hunting accident was staged to trigger a local search while the subject and his girlfriend traveled to London, leaving a wife and children behind. Also, residents of long-term care facilities, particularly veteran administration facilities, may want to go to another facility in a warmer climate or away from relatives and simply walk out and get on a bus or train. These incidents should not be considered hoaxes.

A patient or a resident not present at bed check is a serious problem for the institution and the locality. The resident may be suffering from various debilitating diseases. Often, residents are in need of ongoing care and support.

On the other hand, there have been instances where subjects deliberately deceived third parties into thinking they were missing or drowned while they were enjoying a vacation at Disney World. In some states, this is a crime, and the hoaxer is liable for the costs of the search.

OPERATIONS AND PLANNING

In a search, operations and planning are intimately connected. The initial response and possibly the first operational period may use a concept called “PLOPS” where the planning and operations functions are combined temporarily so field efforts can get underway immediately.

Determine the most likely areas to search using a statistically based model of lost subject behavior and the information gathered during the dispatch and size-up about the subject and the activity the subject was to have planned. If the subject’s place last known (PLK) location can be determined, add this information to the initial data. The PLK is the geographic location at which the subject was known to be before the missing report was filed. This may be a parked car, a campsite, a point of purchase, and so on.

The initial field activities, based on this model, usually involve limited resources rapidly examining trails or roads generally representing the greatest distance possibly traveled from the PLK. These hasty search tasks are conducted by three or four persons walking along the trails marking clues for follow-up by more detail-oriented tasks.

As the hasty teams rapidly search for clues, the initial data are verified, usually by the police. Pictures of the missing subject are obtained and circulated among the public and the searchers. If a public area is involved, uniformed personnel should post the missing person flyer at all entrance gates. Unless criminal activity or potential violence is suspected, the area, except the command post and the search crew camp, should remain open to the public. The untrained public is used as extra eyes. Informing them of the efforts being made on behalf of the search subject enlists their cooperation: Sometimes bystanders provide sighting reports and tips and sometimes actually find the subject.

The personnel at access points are containing the search area. It is impossible to search the entire world for a search subject, but it is possible to detect if the subject has left the area or is probably still in the initial search area. In the more urban areas, this may involve checking gate surveillance cameras, placing personnel at access points, and finding and questioning transit personnel or those who drive regular routes through the area or surrounding roads. Whereas a person might have to walk miles in the western United States to reach a dirt track, a local bus route may be outside the gate of an eastern park.

Outside the area, investigators should be tracking credit cards, ATM activity, E-Z Pass or other electronic toll systems, parking tickets, and moving violations. Many cases have been resolved by determining the subject was out of the area by verifying credit card transactions.

Record a general description and the location where found of any clues discovered, whether identifiable shoe prints or tire tracks, possible campsites, or personal property that may belong to the subject. If possible, an evidence technician should recover the clue as evidence. It may be difficult to verify that the clue actually came from the subject if laboratory work is required; in most cases, clothes, brand names, and food wrappers can be taken at face value.

Do not be misled by the subject’s habit profiles. One subject had a preference for one brand of morning coffee. When we found another locally available brand of coffee cup, we were told the subject never went there. However, he had used the alternative brand because his favorite was not available at his usual coffee shop that morning. People are creatures of habit, but sometimes addiction trumps habit.

Plot on a map of the area the locations of clues and the length of time they have been on the ground. This allows the behaviorists in the planning section to propose shifts in resources to operations based on the model of the subject’s behavior and the debriefing of search personnel who have been in the field. Draw a new probability map and design new tasks for each period or a shorter time frame if the effort is difficult.

A search planner and the operations section leader must continuously evaluate an almost mythical number called “Probability of Detection” (POD). Usually expressed as a percentage, it quantifies the likelihood (probability) that a search resource will detect the search subject. This number is generated by evaluating the terrain, type of resource, area to be covered, time used to cover the area, and general degree of difficulty. Any number higher than 50 percent is suspect, but advanced techniques, such as dogs, FLIR, or mounted searchers, may be more effective. Each resource used in a specific area has its own POD.

Properly using resources to repeat low-intensity sweeps can increase the overall POD as this number is calculated. If the first pass is credited with a 50-percent POD and a different crew is used for the second pass, preferably in a different direction of travel, the POD has been raised to 75 percent overall. The third pass would raise the POD to 87.5 percent. This number is based on each crew’s being able to independently locate 50 percent of the clues left in the field. The first crew gets the first 50 percent; the second crew gets 50 percent of what is left behind by the first crew, or 75 percent of the original number of clues; and the third gets half of what’s left again. However, as it takes the same amount of resources for each pass, there will come a time when results no longer will justify searching the area.

The types of searches vary with the resources available. Totally unskilled or inexperienced searchers may have to be lined up shoulder to shoulder with highly skilled personnel who manage them as they search. This also requires very large support forces to transport, feed, and recover all those search personnel. If you are looking for evidence that is very small, such as cartridge cases, and destroying any other evidence in the area is not a problem, a line search is feasible.

Personnel who can operate in the terrain and expected weather and are equipped for such duty can be spread out to the point where they can just see each other and be allowed to walk the area other than in lock step. This lowers the resource POD, but it drastically reduces the personnel needed to search an area. A team with a metal detector can cover an area more effectively than persons with just the Mark 1 eyeball when looking for some kinds of evidence. Using a smaller, less destructive approach allows you to search more area in less time. On the way out or back, these people can search another area, raising the overall POD by being the second crew through. Less support is needed for a smaller crew used to working in the field.

Wilderness search was one of the first nonwildfire hazards to adopt ICS. Because of several large-field efforts in national parks, the NPS talked with the NFS about how to properly control these incidents. In this historical time period, FIRESCOPE was coming into effective use for forest fire command and control. Many early texts and FOGs for search included FIRESCOPE orientation and used terms such as “crew boss” and “fire boss” to describe positions in the ICS structure.

Today, we are adopting the All Hazards ICS within NIMS for most incidents. In those areas where search is a fire rescue field function, the model works well. The local jurisdiction retains authority, even in cases where there may be concurrent or overlapping jurisdictions. The emphasis is on planning based on clues found and logistics support for a large incident. You must appreciate that resources from many jurisdictions may be used in this effort. The train-together, work-together, respond-together mindset often seen in the fire service where mutual-aid or multiple-company responses are common may not be present when the search groups are responding to your mission from several states away for the first time in several years. However, they should be trained in the national ICS model and be able to operate within your incident management system.

COSTS AND FUNDING

The reality is that since high-risk mission wilderness search is a low probability, it is not funded as other fire rescue or law enforcement functions are, especially when there is no clear authority as to who is responsible for the effort. In many jurisdictions, looking for lost people is nobody’s responsibility. This often results in family or friends responding with no oversight. The loss of experienced volunteer search personnel to the community results in a loss of skills, corporate memory, and nongovernmental organizations servicing the need.

Most of the costs associated with volunteer SAR organizations revolve around insurance, communications, and very limited equipment costs. The organization provides a photo ID for each member and a means to receive dispatches such as an alpha numeric pager or a text message on the member’s phone and e-mail. If the member is an animal handler, the animal is his, as would be the vet bills, the horse trailer, and the tow vehicle in most cases. If legal in your area, off-highway vehicles may be useful. Unless a government agency has specific responsibility for search in the jurisdiction, it is rare that anything would be furnished by the SAR jurisdiction to the SAR organization or volunteers because of a lack of funding.

Each jurisdiction has different insurance requirements for SAR. In most jurisdictions, some public liability insurance is necessary if only to defend your immunity if granted by the state. You will also need some form of workers’ compensation or accident insurance to cover members from dispatch until returning home from real missions and training sessions.

Training for SAR is generally unregulated. A few states provide for credentials if a SAR organization member passes a state-specified class. The National Fire Protection Association publishes international standards for fire rescue personnel, and ASTM International does for SAR personnel. Regional fire rescue training facilities or emergency management agencies may offer courses designed to convey these skills.

Even in training, there may be conflicts in authority. For instance, fire rescue may claim authority because volunteer fire companies furnish many of the initial personnel and may supply technical resources. The Parks and Forests departments may claim authority because searches happen on “their” land. Police want the find for their missing person case, and the emergency manager may want the resources because they are useful in other situations.

The SAR resource must have access to the regional communications system if only through a cache of portables and the use of the mobile command post or communications vehicle in the field. Other equipment may be shared with other agencies. In many cases, maps, global positioning systems, and data processing equipment are common to all large incidents.

SAR resources are usually organized on a multiple-jurisdictional basis because of the low probability and high risk associated with a SAR incident. Each jurisdiction in the region should be aware of the resources available and plan for their use, training, and enhancement as part of the regional planning process. Funding for such a regional organization is trivial in comparison with similar specialized responses; expenses consist primarily of insurance and communications equipment.

● IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN is chief of operations at Southeast Pennsylvania Search and Rescue. He has more than 40 years of experience as an emergency responder, trainer, and planner. He is a certified instructor for nonlive-fire courses offered by the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy and regional training facilities. He is a vehicle rescue instructor and an EMT (since 1985). He has been a volunteer firefighter and fire service administrator since 1972. He has taught first aid and CPR for the Red Cross for almost 40 years and responds with the Red Cross Disaster Assistance Team. He is certified to the operations level for hazardous materials response.

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