Abbreviation | IRO |
---|---|
Formation | 1993 |
Purpose | Search and rescue dog work |
Headquarters | Salzburg |
Location |
|
Region | worldwide |
Members | 133 |
Website | https://www.iro-dogs.org/en/ |
The International Search and Rescue Dog Organisation (IRO) is the worldwide umbrella organisation for search and rescue dog work and partner of the UN organisation INSARAG. It unites more than 250,000 people worldwide with about 4,000 certified search and rescue (SAR) dogs. The headquarters are in Salzburg.
The task of the International Search and Rescue Dog Organisation is to train and certify highly qualified search and rescue dog teams and to provide them as supporting units in case of emergency. Thanks to their fine noses, dogs often become lifesavers after an avalanche accident, an earthquake or in the search for missing children and disoriented people suffering from Alzheimer's or Dementia. Response teams from IRO member organisations are ready to respond 365 days a year when disaster strikes.
The International Search and Rescue Dog Organisation was founded in 1993 and is a registered non-profit organisation. As such, it relies upon donations to provide search and rescue dog teams with the certification, training and education necessary to find lost and missing people.
With their extremely fine sense of smell, dogs are indispensable in search operations, because in contrast to humans, dogs have about 40 times the number of olfactory cells. Therefore, search and rescue dogs can locate the position of buried or missing persons with great accuracy. Despite the rapid technical development, search and rescue dogs are still far superior to any search technology. The four-legged lifesavers are particularly characterised by their flexibility, agility on difficult terrain and incredible search drive.
The training of search and rescue dogs often starts at the age of eight weeks. Courses, trainings and testing events prepare the canines step by step for the case of emergency. IRO trains search and rescue dogs in the disciplines of Tracking, Area Search, Rubble Search and Avalanche Search as well as Water Rescue and Mantrailing.
The first test (V-test) evaluates among other things dexterity and nerve strength. Thereupon the search and rescue dog teams can take the A- and B-tests.
Facts & figures
A positive B test allows for a participation at the MRT (Mission Readiness Test). Annually, the IRO holds at least one MRT in the discipline Area Search as well as Rubble Search. Teams with a positive result are well prepared for a disaster mission. The establishment of national search and rescue dog capacities, especially in disaster-prone countries, is essential for the IRO. At the same time, international cooperation is becoming increasingly important, in order to coordinate search and rescue dog teams efficiently when major disasters occur.
Missions of IRO search and rescue dogs
Response teams from IRO member organisations are ready to respond 365 days a year when disaster strikes, on a voluntary basis and in all weathers. Below are three missions involving IRO search and rescue dog teams.
In the early hours of 6 February, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake caused catastrophic damage in south-eastern Türkiye and parts of Syria. Many of our member organisations sent almost 100 search and rescue dogs with their handlers to the quake zone in Türkiye within a very short time. The teams spent day and night searching the ruins for survivors. Regardless of stress, freezing cold and the danger of collapsing building structures, the canines did not let themselves be diverted from their mission. Thanks to their courageous and determined efforts, they saved the lives of numerous people.
On 9 May 2018 a message was received, which stated that a 13-year-old boy of the small village Stopice went missing. Dog handlers of the IRO member organisation ERPS were immediately called in and started their search after a short briefing at the deployment site and the lay out of the search strategy. Six search and rescue dog teams of the discipline Area and one Mantrailing team were deployed. Only after 25 minutes searching, the boy could be located by a search dog behind a chapel. Subsequently, the parents were informed and the boy was brought home safely.
Exactly on the same day as the remembrance of the earthquake of 1985 took place, the earth shook again. On 19 September 2017 at 13:14 local time the shaking started. The IRO member organisation PMPBR-UNAM searched nine different buildings, among them a school, with their search and rescue dogs. Altogether, 35 to 40 buildings were searched by rescue teams. Since it has been an earthquake of a greater extent, Canadian and Argentine IRO teams were called in towards the end of the mission too.
Since its foundation in 1993, the International Search and Rescue Dog Organisation has developed continuously and currently counts more than 130 national search and rescue dog organisations from 41 nations worldwide. In Austria alone there are ten organisations. [1]
IRO organises courses, trainings, testing events, mission readiness tests, competitions and the annual World Championship for search and rescue dogs. Up to 150 SAR dog teams demonstrate their skills in Tracking, Area Search and Rubble Search at the World Championship. 2018 also saw the first World Championship in the discipline of Avalanche Search. Much effort is put into recreating real-life scenarios, which the best of the best impressively master.
Year | Venue |
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2023 | Stubenberg, ![]() |
2022 | Craiova, ![]() |
2019 | Paris, ![]() |
2018 | Ljubljana, ![]() |
2018 | Pitztal, ![]() |
2017 | Ebreichsdorf, ![]() |
2016 | Turin, ![]() |
2015 | Aalborg, ![]() |
2014 | Nova Gorica, ![]() |
2013 | Nijmegen, ![]() |
2012 | Romny, ![]() |
2011 | Chastre, ![]() |
2010 | Žatec, ![]() |
In 2008, the IRO also launched the International Search and Rescue Dog Day, an initiative that offers search and rescue dog organisations the opportunity to present themselves and at the same time give an insight into the valuable work with search and rescue dogs. According to the motto "365 days a year mission ready", demonstrations, information events and trial trainings are organised all over the world.
The International Search and Rescue Dog Organisation is based in Salzburg, Austria and currently employs six people. The highest decision-making body of the IRO is the Meeting of Delegates. It is composed of the delegates from the respective national search and rescue dog organisations, the executive board and the executive committee.
The Spitak earthquake in Armenia in 1988 raised the question of international cooperation in the field of search and rescue dog training. As one of the most severe earthquakes in recent decades, it gave the impulse to strive for better coordination between disaster relief workers, search and rescue dog teams and authorities. As a result, the IRO was founded in 1993 with the aim of setting standards for the training and deployment of search and rescue dog teams worldwide. Since the beginning, the IRO has been working together with the UN to continuously develop and improve SAR dog work.
Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search is conducted over. These include mountain rescue; ground search and rescue, including the use of search and rescue dogs ; urban search and rescue in cities; combat search and rescue on the battlefield and air-sea rescue over water.
Mountain rescue refers to search and rescue activities that occur in a mountainous environment, although the term is sometimes also used to apply to search and rescue in other wilderness environments. This tends to include mountains with technical rope access issues, snow, avalanches, ice, crevasses, glaciers, alpine environments and high altitudes. The difficult and remote nature of the terrain in which mountain rescue often occurs has resulted in the development of a number of specific pieces of equipment and techniques. Helicopters are often used to quickly extract casualties, and search dogs may be deployed to find a casualty.
The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) (French: Équipe d'intervention en cas de catastrophe (EICC)) is a rapidly deployable team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel. It provides assistance to disaster-affected regions for up to 40 days. DART's headquarters is located in Kingston, Ontario. DART was created by the Canadian government in 1996 in the aftermath of the inadequate response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when Canada's aid arrived after the peak of a cholera epidemic. The government determined that it would be of the utmost importance in many disasters if it was able to rapidly deploy a group of people until long-term aid arrived. DART has an annual budget of CA$500,000, although during specific incidents the Parliament of Canada can choose to temporarily allocate millions of dollars to DART to fund their response effort. For example, Operation Torrent, the aid mission to Turkey in the wake of the 1999 earthquake which left 17,000 people dead, saw CA$15 million used by DART in the response.
The Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (DART) is the elite unit of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) that specialises in complex incidents such as technical rescue, urban search and rescue, water rescue operations and prolonged firefighting.
Canines, Canis familiaris, perform many essential roles within society, most notably in the fields of assistance, therapy, detection, and protection. Falling within the field of detection, a search-and-rescue (SAR) dog is one trained to respond to crime scenes, accidents, missing persons events, as well as natural or man-made disasters. These dogs detect human scent, which is a distinct odor of skin flakes and water and oil secretions unique to each person and have been known to find people underwater, snow, and collapsed buildings, as well as remains buried underground. SAR dogs are a non-invasive aid in the location of humans, alive or deceased.
The International Life Saving Federation (ILS) is an organisation for drowning prevention, water safety, lifesaving and lifesaving sports.
A FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force is a team of individuals specializing in urban search and rescue, disaster recovery, and emergency triage and medicine. The teams are deployed to emergency and disaster sites within six hours of notification. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) created the Task Force concept to provide support for large scale disasters in the United States. FEMA provides financial, technical and training support for the Task Forces as well as creating and verifying the standards of Task Force personnel and equipment.
A rescue robot is a robot designed to aid in the search and rescue of humans. They may assist rescue efforts by searching, mapping, removing rubble, delivering supplies, providing medical treatment or evacuating casualties.
Explorer Search and Rescue (ESAR) are teams of Explorers in the Learning for Life program of the Boy Scouts of America who are trained and deployed for search and rescue missions. Well-developed ESAR programs emerged in the state of Washington in the mid-1950s and were followed by others in California and elsewhere. The rugged, mountainous terrain of these areas often require massive amounts of manpower for proper searches for missing people, not to mention their rescue and evacuation from remote areas. The ESAR mission has also expanded over the years to include urban search and rescue and other disaster-related disciplines. Many ESAR groups also provide wilderness safety training to the public.
Mounted search and rescue (MSAR) is a specialty within search and rescue (SAR), using horses as search partners and for transportation to search for missing persons. SAR responders on horseback are primarily a search resource, but also can provide off-road logistics support and transportation. Mounted SAR responders can in some terrains move faster on the ground than a human on foot, can transport more equipment, and may be physically less exhausted than a SAR responder performing the same task on foot. Mounted SAR responders typically have longer initial response times than groundpounder SAR resources, due to the time required to pick up trailer, horse(s), and perhaps also water, feed, and equipment.
Mountain Rescue Ireland is the representative body for mountain rescue services on the island of Ireland. It has eleven member organisations - ten regional mountain rescue teams and one national canine search team (SARDA). Mountain Rescue Ireland (MRI) is a member of the International Commission for Alpine Rescue (IKAR-CISA).
The International Rescue Corps (IRC) is a volunteer organisation involved in disaster rescue, based in Grangemouth, Scotland. Its motto is "United To Save Life".
Slysavarnarfélagið Landsbjörg or the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (ICE-SAR) is a national association of rescue units and accident prevention divisions. Its member organizations consist of 99 rescue units, 70 accident prevention and women's divisions and 50 youth sections. Altogether the association has about 10,000 volunteer members and are present in most towns. Although the rescue teams function as a kind of public service, they are not supported or paid for by the government but by donation.
Marin County Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer organization in Marin County within Marin County Sheriff's Office. With approximately sixty active members, Marin County's Search and Rescue responds to searches for missing children and adults, evidence and other search requests in the county and on mutual aid calls anywhere in the state of California. Marin SAR is a mountain rescue Type I team with the motto of: "Anytime, Anywhere, Any Weather."
AKUT Search and Rescue Association is a Turkish non-governmental organization for disaster search and rescue relief. It was established in 1995 as a grassroots organization by seven leading outdoor athletes of Turkey and officially founded as an association in 1996.
Emergency Response Team Search and Rescue (ERTSAR) is an INSARAG listed international disaster response NGO search and rescue team, with bases in Henley-on-Thames, United Kingdom and Toronto, Canada.
Operation Maitri was a rescue and relief operation in Nepal by the government of India and Indian armed forces in the aftermath of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. Indian government responded within few minutes of the quake. It started on 26 April 2015 and also involved Nepali ex-servicemen from India's Gurkha Regiments for interface for guidance, relief and rescue.
Douglas County Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer organization in Douglas County within Douglas County Sheriff's Office. With approximately sixty active members year-round, Douglas County's Search and Rescue responds to searches for missing children and adults, evidence and other search requests in the county and on mutual aid calls anywhere in the state of Colorado. Douglas SAR is a mountain rescue Type I certified team able to handle the toughest terrain and remain out in the field without resupply for extended periods.
@fire International Disaster Response Germany is a German non-profit, non-governmental civil protection organisation which assists during natural disasters. The organisation was founded in 2002 in Wallenhorst, Germany as a pro bono network of professional and volunteer firefighters. Since 2010 @fire is member of the UN-Organisation INSARAG.
Various countries and organizations have responded to the 6 February 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake. At least 105 countries and 16 international organizations had pledged support for victims of the earthquake, including humanitarian aid. More than eleven countries provided teams with search and rescue dogs to locate victims under the debris and monetary support was offered as well.