Equipment
A Search and Rescue team’s third most important asset, after people, and skills, is equipment. While an operation can continue under an individual’s own skills and personal gear, the team devotes a large amount of its time and resources evaluating, acquiring, training with and maintaining its equipment.
Equipment is the most visible aspect of a SAR team, and we spend many hours training to know exactly what each items is used for and how it works. Under any conditions, be it a blizzard in the Fraser Valley, a Flood on the Coquitlam River, an avalanche on the Grouse grind, or a mudslide on the North Shore, this stuff has to work when we need it.
Vehicles
Coquitlam 1
Coquitlam 1, or “Coquitlam Command” is our mobile incident command post. It contains most of the specialized equipment we may need to perform any kind of search or rescue: ropes, hypothermia treatment, first aid, communications equipment, etc. Everything is there, packed, and ready for a search. Read more…
Coquitlam 2
Coquitlam 2 is our secondary command post, transportation and utility vehicle. It can also be used as a command post. When we are called by other search teams in the Province, this is the first vehicle we send. It comes fully equipped for multi day searches involving mountain rescue, avalanche rescue, rope rescue, and when towing the Argo or Polaris boat, ATV and inland water rescue. Read more…
Coquitlam 3
Coquitlam 3 is a 23’ Aluminum Shallow Water River / Lake / Ocean Boat commissioned in 2021. It can be used as a dive platform, transportation vehicle and search platform. It’s equipped with marine and VHF radios, standard marine safety equipment and spotlights. Coquitlam 3 is used to transport people and equipment and search on the Pitt River and Pitt Lake as well as the Fraser River, and other inland lakes and waterways in the Coquitlam area. Read more…
Coquitlam 4
Coquitlam 4 is a Ford F350 SRW 4×4 and is used as our personnel transport and rescue vehicle. On searches it’s used as a 4×4 for the service roads in our area and in the Coquitlam Watershed. It’s also used to tow Coquitlam 3 and Coquitlam 5. The team often assigns Coquitlam 4 to searches outside our response area as a mutual aid SAR vehicle. Read more…
Coquitlam 5
Coquitlam 5 is a Honda Pioneer-5 Side-by-side UTV. It was purchased to replace our Argo Avenger 8×8. It’s used on the many deactivated and decommissioned roads on Eagle Ridge and Burke Mountain. Equipped with tracks for winter travel, working lights for rescues and a winch for recovery, the UTV is designed to transport up to 4 SAR members and gear rapidly in all conditions in our search area. Read more…
