VIDEO: As the weather warms up and visitors flock to the Valley, hiking season will be in full swing. Inevitably, mountain rescues will occur.
KTAR News reporter Ali Vetnar spent a day with a specialized team of firefighters in Phoenix who respond to those calls.
They’re called Technical Rescue Teams. The Phoenix Fire Department has 240 members who are certified for the most extreme emergency calls including mountain rescues but they also respond to hazardous material calls, building collapses and other high-risk incidents.
Looked at as a highly sought after position, most firefighters who are a part of a team are roughly 10 year veterans of the job. Once they complete a 200-hour course over five weeks, they are eligible to be a part of the team. But their training doesn’t stop there.
They call their weekly training “TRT Tuesdays.”