LARGE ANIMAL RESCUE SKULL SESSION
September 30th

  LITTLE TOWN, BIG FIRE

The "Bison Fire" was at its time the largest single wildfire to occur in Nevada. (There have been larger "complexes" when multiple fires burned together in the northeastern part of the state.)

The Bison Fire was started by lightning and grew to nearly 25,000 acres before it was contained.

Location

Smith Valley, in southern Lyon County.

Date and Time

Call received on July 9th around 4:30 PM.

Incident Details

Strong winds are pushing the fire toward the rural community of Smith Valley (population, approx. 1,600.) Most of the community consists of ranchettes with various species of pets and livestock. The fire has just passed the "trigger point" for which an evacuation of the community will take effect.

You have received a call to organize and command an Animal Rescue Group and report to the Search and Rescue Command Post at the fire's spike camp at Smith Valley High School.

You have available four in-county trained large animal crews with stock trailers, a crew from Douglas county with stock trailer and a team with a straight load trailer with the divider removed. (The Douglas County crew actually has faster access to the command post than the in-county crews.)

Also available to you is a cache of animal crates of various sizes.

(Please feel free to substitute these resources with those that may generally be available to you in your own location when submitting solution ideas.)

Your objective is to organize the rescue in the context of a major wildfire that is operating under a unified joint command structure, using your own mobile and personnel resources with possible assistance of a Search and Rescue team member to aid in street identification and determine safe routes.

This very real scenario is a good test of organizational, planning, organization of resources and coordination skills.

Skull Session Questions

  1. What are your priorities?

  2. What are the safety issues?

  3. What resources do you need?

  4. Describe your action plan.

Please post your answers to the Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue group.

Skull Session rules.

Please post your answers independently of the answers posted by others. Please also recognize that there can be varying perceptions as to what these scenarios involve since these problems are being solved using limited information. The values of these sessions include the various approaches the participants may suggest based on their varying perceptions of the problem, so it's not a matter of someone being right and someone being wrong.

Please read, think, and post your answers to the TLAER Facebook group based on your perception of the problem presented.

Continue to How the Incident was Resolved

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This material is intended for the use of the Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue (TLAER) Facebook Group. TLAER is a trademark of Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue.