This week, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service as a National Resilience training delivery partner will be hosting a National Resilience three-day specialist annual grading and training event at its training centre in Washington, with 15 of the country’s leading National Resilience Urban search and rescue (USAR) dogs and their handlers.

The three-day National Resilience search dog training and assessment programme* is aimed at UK Urban Search and Rescue search dog teams.

* The full programme name is National Resilience USAR search dog team annual maintenance of competence assessment and continuing professional development (CPD) training.

The training scenario simulated a structural collapse with missing/trapped persons located in the basement area of a collapsed building. 

This involved the handlers deploying the USAR dogs to search and locate simulated casualties in confined tunnels, and even a derelict lift shaft, with the aim of finding the missing casualties buried deep under the rubble.

The skills demonstrated by the search dog teams are essential for tackling real life incidents, where time is critical, and it could be literally a matter of life or death.

The collapsed structure used for the training was the first of its kind anywhere in the country, when originally launched over three years ago. The training facility sees a number of chambers connected by 180ft of concrete pipework, which has been covered in rubble to ideally recreate an incident scene.

The fire and rescue services in attendance were Buckinghamshire; Devon & Somerset; Essex; Hereford & Worcestershire; Isle of Wight & Hampshire; Kent; Lancashire; Lincolnshire; Merseyside; Norfolk; Tyne and Wear; Wales; and West Yorkshire.

Area Manager Andy Lillford, Operations and Resilience, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We are proud to be hosting such an important National Resilience exercise at our North-East training centre.

“The country’s National Resilience Urban search and rescue teams rigorously train for every eventuality with their skills being required for some of the most dangerous locations and terrains including major building collapse and transport incidents.

“The unique facilities that we have in Tyne and Wear enables the USAR dogs and their handlers to train under real life conditions allowing them to develop and fine tune their specialist techniques.”   

Watch Manager Steve Carr, Merlin’s handler, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The National Resilience search dog training and assessment programme is a great way for handlers and their dogs to show their knowledge and learn new skills by working under closely controlled conditions.

“We are lucky to have these exemplary resources in the region that enables people to experience first-hand the kind of challenging environments they might face during a major incident.

“For a handler to be crawling through confined spaces in underground tunnels alongside their search dog colleague is a rare occurrence that our facilities allow.  Over the three days everyone had the chance to bond and work closely together here in the North-East.”