Retired Fire Fighter Helps Develop Mexico’s First Search and Rescue Task Force

July 22, 2010 -- Joseph Martinez left fire fighting in October 2007 because of a career-ending back injury. But that injury has not stopped Martinez, former fire fighter for Santa Maria, CA Local 2020, from helping create a first-ever search and rescue team for the City of Obregon in Mexico.

Martinez was in Obregon in March 2000 visiting his fiancée and preparing for their wedding when he heard the tragic story. Visiting the City’s main fire station, Fire Chief Juan de Acha and other fire fighters told Martinez about the line-of-duty deaths of Ernesto Partida, 28, and Manuel Medrano, 27.

The men died while battling a large commercial fire when their air tanks ran empty. Without functioning personal alarm locators, and with ingress and egress blocked by burning debris, the men had removed their masks and died from inhaling super-heated gas. They had collapsed 10 feet from fellow fire fighters and their bodies were without burns.

The tragic story struck a cord with Martinez, who like many fire fighters stateside sometimes take for granted the accessibility to state-of-the-art equipment they are given to fight fires.

Martinez was motivated to begin gathering phased-out fire equipment from fire departments in and around Santa Maria to take across the border into Obregon. While the phased-out equipment no longer would pass muster with the U.S. Fire Service or Cal-OSHA, it would be warmly accepted in Mexico where fire fighters were working often with less than the bare essentials.

“Once every year, I load my truck with all of the donated fire equipment. I look similar to the Beverly Hillbillies truck,” he muses.

On his first trip to Obregon, he delivered six functioning personal alarm locators.
Martinez says that on some occasions he was stopped at the border and delayed with “mountains of paperwork” needed to clear passage for the equipment. Though recently, he has contacted high-level officials in the Mexican government who have been able to smooth out the delays.

The former fire fighter has taken his mission a step further and, working side by side with local fire chief, Sergio Martinez, he has helped develop a fully functional Urban Search and Rescue Task Force within the department.

Martinez believes that Obregon is a good location for a search and rescue team since most of the country’s natural disasters – from floods to earthquakes – happen in the central regions of the country.
The Urban Search and Rescue Task Force includes one task force leader, an assistant task force leader, three squad leaders and 27 fire fighters.

The next step for the task force, says Martinez, is to become a resource for the United Nations as an official member of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), which is a global network of more than 80 countries and disaster response organizations under the United Nations umbrella.