Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) ISAR team is made up of 15 dedicated team members that come from across Greater Manchester. The team prides itself in recruiting new members who must undertake an extensive and arduous selection and training process. This helps to ensure that new team members are highly motivated and passionate to gain the required knowledge and skills to operate in an area affected by a sudden onset disaster.
GMFRS team members have been actively involved in disaster response efforts worldwide, deploying to crises such as earthquakes, tsunamis, pandemics, and large-scale flooding in locations including:
- Turkey, Macedonia, Kosovo, Algeria, India, Pakistan, Haiti, Bosnia, Japan, West Africa (Ebola – UK-based activity), Morocco
Additionally, team members have contributed to capacity-building projects in:
- Tajikistan, Pakistan, India, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Kenya
They have also led mentoring and classification missions for organizations such as:
- UME, Madrid, Netherlands, ERICAM, and several others throughout the team’s history
Furthermore, the team has taken part in national and international exercises and completed specialized courses in:
- Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the USA, Canada, Italy, Austria, Cyprus, Kosovo, Russia, Spain, and Singapore
All the locations mentioned above have given the opportunity for professional relationships and friendships to have been forged. Best practice to be promoted and developed and for experiences to be shared, sometimes positive and sometimes unfortunate.
The GMFRS ISAR team are based at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service’s state of the art training and safety centre in Bury. These personnel either work at the site delivering Technical Rescue training to Firefighters across the county or are based at one of the two Technical Response Stations (TRU). This ensures they are constantly training or responding to incidents and possess the skills required to perform International Search and Rescue Operations. These specialist skills include Rope Rescue, Confined Space Rescue, Swift Water Rescue, Chainsaw, Trauma care and Urban Search and Rescue.
The team attends regular National Training Workshops and events. Over the years Manchester have hosted and coordinated a number of training events and continue to be active locally, nationally and internationally. This included medical training workshops, to give the UK ISAR Medical Team who deploy alongside our firefighters increased operational awareness, Rope Rescue workshops to prepare the national team for their United Nations assessment and also “beyond the rubble” training events to assist Cumbrian villagers after severe flooding in The Lake District.
GMFRS ISAR also conduct independent national recruitment and selection tests for other ISAR teams in an arduous mountain environment.
The long list of team members from inception to now are;
Sam Schofield, Rob Kelly, Andy Roughly, John Stewart, Neal Pickersgill, Matt Keogh, Pete Stevenson, Dave Morris, John Heydon, Rick Booth, Martin Fisher, Mick Dewar, Steve Morris, Marc Murphy, Dean Nankivell, Martin Foran, John Hughes, Simon Cording, Gary Costello, Clive Geoghegan, Andy Horridge, Mick Bloomfield, Phil Nelson, Steve Jordan, Mark Eaves, Victor Kopicki, Dave Swallow, Alex Sugden, Gavin Kearsley, Clare Louth, Phil Wells, Jo Musgrave, Russ Maden, Dylan Carter, Simon Johnson, Ross Strother, Pete Griffiths, Sam Wheatley, Dave Hedgecock, Mike Hirst, Steve Pennington, Dan Wilmer, Kris Burdsall, Kev Wright, Scott Merrills, Dane Smith, Mike Woodhall, Dan Davey, Dan Unsworth and Rupert Tighe
The team leader for GMFRS is Martin Foran foranmc@manchesterfire.gov.uk
and the Deputy Team Leader is Gavin Kearsley kearsleyg@manchesterfire.gov.uk
