Emergency Services
Emergency Services
Always prepared, both in the air and on the ground, members of the Civil Air Patrol perform emergency services for state and local agencies as well as the federal government as the civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force and for states/local communities as a nonprofit organization. Ever vigilant, these true patriots make a difference in their communities, not only to assist in times of disaster but also to search for the lost and protect the homeland.
Civil Air Patrol (CAP) conducts a variety of operational missions primarily in the areas of Emergency Services (Search And Rescue (SAR), Disaster Relief (DR)), Counterdrug (CD), and Homeland Security (HLS). Most of this is done in CAP’s role as the United States Air Force Auxiliary as Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) under Title 10, but CAP also provides assistance to State and Local authorities in many cases before there is a defined Federal interest under Title 36 as well.
There is a significant amount of education and training required for the varied missions Civil Air Patrol supports, and more importantly the personnel needed to accomplish those missions.
All personnel supporting missions for Civil Air Patrol start with General Emergency Services training. This is essentially CAP's license to learn, and also provides core training needed by all members in emergency services:
General Emergency Services Materials
Safety is a critical component in all CAP operations, and thus CAP requires Operational Risk Management (ORM) training for all members as well.
Mission aircrew training is critical for the variety of aviation operations that CAP supports:
Aircrew and Flightline Task Guide
Mission Aircrew & Flightline Curriculum
Ground operations are also a critical function to CAP's mission operations. Without ground teams, there can be no rescue in SAR. The following training is used to train our ground operations personnel:
Ground & Urban DF Team Task Guide
Ground and Urban Direction Finding Team Curriculum
All of the above personnel need appropriately training staff to plan and run operations. The following training is used for the personnel working in ICS staff at the mission bases for CAP:
Mission Base Staff Task Guide
Mission Base Staff and Incident Command System Curriculum
Trainees are only allowed to operate in the field under the guidance of Qualified Supervisors.
Personnel are only approved to serve in the above specialties by approved evaluators:
Skills Evaluator Training
A variety of external training is also available and recommended for CAP members:
Including Online courses of independent study at FEMA. https://training.fema.gov/ These are online courses available to anyone. They are developed and maintained by DHS. Many CAP Personnel need to take IS-100, IS-200, IS-700 and/or IS-800 to be NIMS compliant.
National SAR School - Inland SAR Planner Course Online Application This course is run by the Air Force to train their AFRCC Controllers, CAP Members, and other SAR professionals. More details are available online at: http://www.forcecom.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/FORCECOM-UNITS/TraCen-Yorktown/Training/Maritime-Search-Rescue/Inland-SAR/.
