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Crew History

The B.C. Rapattack program was developed in 1977 in Lower Post, B.C. The initial three crews were posted to Lower Post, Dease Lake and Atlin.

In 1979, the program moved to its current location in Salmon Arm to ensure better response times to the majority of fires that require rappel response.

Rapattack remains a provincial resource that responds anywhere in the province as hazard and activity dictates.

In 1998, Rapattack developed one of the first civilian hoist programs in the country. This provided an additional medevac option for rappel crews, other BCWS crews and is now the primary method of extracting Rapattack crews from remote fires.

Rapattack currently staffs 10-12 crews, five to six Helicopter Operations Technicians (command spotters/hoist technicians) and three Bell 412EP Helicopters with external hoist and belly tank.

Rapattack crews must travel light for helicopter performance and safety. Personnel are limited to 79kg (175lbs) body weight, carry only 136kg (300lbs) of custom firefighting equipment during initial response and 24 hours of food and water. Additional resources can be deployed as needed for larger and/or longer incidents.

Rapattack crews are versatile, serving as rappel initial attack, local area truck initial attack, hoist medevac, helipad construction for remote access and travel with fully outfitted trucks for both initial attack and assisting on larger incidents.

Patches

Crew Supervisors

N. Aikins – current

J. Battistel – current

E. Bruns – current

C. Butchart – current

J. Edge – current

T. Hardy – current

N. Rampen – current

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