The Allegan County Search & Rescue Team (ACSAR) is a 100% Volunteer Organization that is under the direction and control of the Allegan County Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Management. The team is on-call to assist Area Police and Fire Departments when they search for Missing Persons in urban or wilderness situations. ACSAR has also been called upon to assist in Evidence and Article searches when an incident has happened in a large geographical area.

ACSAR also has a Mounted Division. Currently, our team has 12 Mounted Team members. These members go through various training and must demonstrate competency in several different areas of Horsemanship. Many of our Mounted members have taken Air-scent training with their horses. Several members also have training in crowd control techniques as well. The horses give the ACSAR Team many benefits when searching large areas.

Our team also has a K9 division. We currently have several dogs that are trained in different aspects of searching. Like us, dogs can be trained for specific tasks. Some may be trained in air scent and live tracking, while others are trained as article or cadaver dogs.

Team members receive CERT Training, which is Community Emergency Response Teams. This is a training program that is sponsored by FEMA. Members receive training in disaster response, management, small fire response, utilities, triage, and more.

Members of the Allegan County Search & Rescue receive recurring training in many areas including:

• Incident Command System
• Command Structure
• Victim Information Gathering
• Victim Characteristics and Behavior
• Search Techniques
• Map Reading and Charting
• Navigation: Compass and GPS
• CPR & First Aid
• Survival Techniques
• Radio Communication
• Crime Scene Preservation
• Evidence and Article searches
• Ropes and Knots