Utah team to help search Texas

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 17, 2003 | by Pat ReavyDeseret News staff writer

The Salt Lake County Fire Department's Wildland Team has been asked by the Texas Emergency Coordination Center to look for parts of the space shuttle Columbia.

The team is scheduled to leave Tuesday to search a wilderness area in east Texas for the next 30 days. It is their first response under the new Department of Homeland Security.

"We are excited to go. This is a rare opportunity for us to help with such a large-scale incident," Salt Lake County Fire Capt. Mike Watson said.

Most of the wildland team consists of seasonal help, so when the request was made to send a crew, the department called many of its seasonal help until it had enough people to assemble a 20-man crew, Watson said.

The Texas Interagency Fire Center reportedly was looking for a total of 80 crews from the West to help in the search effort. Each crew will be assigned a large area to search. Those areas will then be broken into smaller areas, Watson said.

"We're just going to be gritting it out, looking for any kind of evidence. It's just going to be a fine-tooth-comb-kind of ordeal," he said. "Even the smallest piece of evidence could end up being crucial in the investigation."

Even though the weather is expected to be rainy and near 30 degree at night, Watson said, NASA wants the search completed before the spring grass grows taller.

Watson said their mission is similar to the mission of Salt Lake County's Urban Search and Rescue Team at ground zero after Sept. 11. The scale of the mission to Texas is every bit as large when its implications for NASA's future are examined, he said.

E-MAIL: preavy@desnews.com