Marin County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue

Marin County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue Mountain Rescue Team
	Marin County Sheriff's Office Search & Rescue Mountain Rescue Team logo
Active	1970 - Present
Type	All volunteer, SAR, MRA unit
Size	100 active members
Part of	Marin County Sheriff's Office
Garrison/HQ	San Rafael, CA
Nickname(s)	Marin SAR
Motto(s)	Anytime, Anywhere, Any Weather
Colors	White and Green
Website	Unit website
Commanders
Unit Commander	Michael St. John
Sheriff's Lt. Liaison	Pierre Ahuncain
Support Directors	Bob Gehlen, Molly Williams

Marin County Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer organization in Marin County within Marin County Sheriff's Office.[1] With approximately sixty active members, Marin County's Search and Rescue (Marin SAR) responds to searches for missing children and adults, evidence[2] and other search requests in the county and on mutual aid calls anywhere in the state of California. Marin SAR is a mountain rescue Type I team with the motto of: "Anytime, Anywhere, Any Weather."

History

Marin County Search and Rescue (Marin SAR) began as Explorer Post 74 in 1970, focusing on ecology and outdoor education.[3] In 1971, the organization became the first scouting group in Marin to accept young women into the program. In the mid-1970s, several members attended a scouting conference in Washington state and learned about Explorer Search and Rescue. Marin Explorers returned and convinced the rest of the group to change the focus to search and rescue.

In 2004, Marin County's SAR team became Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) Type I[4] certified[5]—capable of handling the most challenging terrain at the highest elevations. In 2006, Marin SAR hosted the International Mountain Rescue Conference (IMRC),[6] bringing search and rescue experts from all over to train together and share best practices in technical rescue. In 2010, Marin SAR was one of the coordinating host agencies for SAREX 2010[7] with responsibility for the coordination and management of the technical rope rescue track.

Today the team, headquartered in San Rafael, CA at 10S 054113 420581 UTM, trains and is equipped to respond to sustained wilderness[8][9][10] and high altitude searches, missing children searches,[11] mass casualty incidents or natural disasters[12] as well as Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) with some members also members of regional US&R task force and swiftwater rescue. One of the few Search & Rescue teams to recruit and deploy youth members, on average Marin's SAR team has approximately 30 high-school[13][14] age members and in a typical year deploys on 50+ missions throughout the State of California including Yosemite.[15]

Operations

Due to the diverse geography of Marin County, its proximity to major population centers, and natural tourist attractions, Marin County's SAR team operates closely with National Park Service (NPS) rangers, California State Park Rangers, Marin Watershed management,[16] Marin County Open Space District[17] as well as local law enforcement, fire, and civic organizations.[18][19]

Resources

Marin SAR fields six Search & Rescue vehicles including one SUV, a 4x4 van, a command vehicle and three emergency service vehicles. Additionally the team has two ATVs, a UTV[20] and an IRB.