Urban Search and Rescue Pennsylvania Task Force 1

Urban Search and Rescue Pennsylvania Task Force  or PA-TF1 is a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force based in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is sponsored by the Commonwealth.

Participating Agencies
Pennsylvania Task Force One, PA-TF-1, serves as one of FEMA’s 28 Urban Search and Rescue Teams. The Pennsylvania based Urban Search and Rescue Team is led by Chief Dan Hartman (Officer in Command) of the Harrisburg, Pa Bureau of Fire. The 62 member team is comprised of many agencies, with personnel primarily being from the Harrisburg Bureau of Fire, the Philadelphia Fire Department and the Baltimore County Fire Department.

Capabilities
Serving as the Pennsylvania State Capital, the City of Harrisburg is centrally located in Pennsylvania and is easily accessible to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre areas via Interstates 76, 80 and 81. The Harrisburg Bureau of Fire provides its Rescue 1 unit as a Special Hazards Advanced Rescue Personnel (SHARP) response in advance of the PA-TF-1. This advance search and rescue team responds to high angle rescues, trench rescues, confined space rescues, building collapses, water rescues and other technical rescues. This Harrisburg Bureau of Fire rescue team was formed in 1991.

Deployments
PA-TF-1 has been deployed to numerous incidents of national significance, including the 2001 World Trade Center Attacks and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina event.

Pennsylvania Task Force 2
In 2002, then Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker proposed the formation of Pennsylvania Task Force Two, PA-TF-2. This search and rescue team was envisioned to perform the same search and rescue services as PA-TF-1, but only be deployable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This state Urban Search and Rescue Team is still in the formative stage.