Our Urban Search and Rescue team is reclassified as a Heavy USAR team

Congratulations to Fire and Emergency’s Urban Search and Rescue team NZL-01 for achieving their INSARAG External Reclassification (IER).

This means our team NZL-01 has successfully been tested and met all the criteria established in the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group’s (INSARAG) Guidelines and maintains classification as a Heavy USAR team. This requires a lot of dedication, adaptability and skill and is vital to enable our USAR personnel to deploy overseas to assist in emergencies and for New Zealand to receive reciprocal support.

National and International Response Manager, Ian Duncan, said the team was put through its paces over 36-hours at the New Zealand Defence Force’s Ardmore military training area in Auckland under the eyes of INSARAG classifiers who came to Aotearoa from Australia, China, France, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. 
 
‘In an already intense and challenging environment, including developing a deployment of six people to support Papua New Guinea, they also had to deal with the effects of severe weather that came through the exercise site causing significant damage and power outages.’

Well done team, we are very proud of you. You can read more about the exercise on the Portal.