Get Involved

Membership

INSAR is a non-profit volunteer organization with the mission of helping to save lives through search and rescue operations as well as public education. This mission is accomplished through the combination of many different individuals coming together with a wide variety of expertise and strengths. In addition to the minimum standards to join the team, our members bring backgrounds in medicine, technical rock and ice climbing, navigation, aircraft operations, vehicle operations, leadership, business and finance, law enforcement, military service and many others. Our success is based on the collective experience and expertise of our members.

Interested in becoming a member? Our team can make use of volunteers with a variety of skills. We always have a need for volunteers in the following areas:

Support staff to man a search command post and aid in the operation of that command post
Command staff that can assist in running a search operation and conducting mission planning
Field searchers that are the backbone of the search effort whether it be on foot, in/on a vehicle, or managing a search dog
Mountain Rescue staff that take searching to a new level through their ability to sustain search and rescue operations above the tree line, in more severe weather and at night, and also have additional technical rescue capabilities for evacuating a patient from these environments.

We have roles to fit nearly everyone within our team. If volunteering to help save a life is something that appeals to you, come to our next meeting or contact us to learn more.

Fill out a Membership Application and email a completed version back to info@insar.us or bring it to our next meeting.

We meet on the second Monday of every month and our meeting location is at the Spokane Sheriff Department Training Facility in the Spokane valley at 7:00pm. The address is 10319 East Appleway and the training area is up on the second level of the building. Drive up the ramp to the upper parking area and enter through the glass doors on the East side of the parking lot.

Time and Training Requirements

All non-trainee INSAR members are on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a fact that we will not have all members available for every search or call out. We all have families, careers, school, vacations, etc. This is an all volunteer organization and you decide if you want to go on a search.

Our team has taken this into consideration in developing the following requirements to be in good standing with the team.

50% of the monthly general meetings
10% of all callouts
the currently defined team requirements for the role you have chosen
the current level of training required by the State of Washington and Spokane County

You will likely not meet all of the team, state and county requirements initially. We have training available, nearly all of which is free to our members, to help you meet these requirements as well as ongoing education to help you continue to refine those skills and stay current.