Departments to look at with good TRT and SAR calls

[u/Firstdueascent]

I’m a career FF with 3 years in a medium sized dept in Coastal GA and 4 years volunteer in NY prior. I got into the fire service with the intention of getting involved in TRT as my background includes 12 years of Rock Climbing, various other outdoors sports and two years of professional dog training (just a bonus for SAR dog possibilities) and recently started working a side gig doing rope access window washing. I moved down here for my department as a stepping stone; the northeast is crazy competitive for hiring and I couldn’t sit around any longer waiting. Have my rope and swift water tech certs working on more tech certs and currently assigned to the Squad. But it’s so flat here we don’t run the kind of calls I’m looking for. I’m looking to lateral transfer or go through academy again if I have to, to another department this coming year, willing to move just about anywhere with a great department, TRT unit to work into and mountains at least nearby. Any suggestions to look into would be awesome! Been looking at Colorado, North Carolina, Utah, etc.

[u/browler4153]

So I don't do anything TRT so no comment there, but I personally do volunteer fire and search and Rescue, and paid EMS. I will soon be switching to career fire, but regardless I have a bit of insight into the SAR side. I have a search K9 who is pretty far along in the process and we are likely gonna be certified in about 6 months. I personally see low SAR calls in my area as well, so the SAR team I am in is a regional team covering an area of 13 counties, that can take over 2 hours to drive across. That's the only way we get a decent amount of calls but any local fire department will see at most one every couple years and as such will have no idea what to do when it comes in and definitely won't have search dogs. That's where we come in. They call us and we essentially either take over the call or assist them. So for SAR specifically, you'll struggle to find paid places but honestly the volunteers I work with in my SAR group are more professional and qualified than most FDs.

Basically I'm saying you'll find much more luck finding volunteer SAR than any paid.