On September 15, 2008 a group of Chester County Firefighters meet and decided to go forward with a Technical Rescue Task Force. The group had brief discussion about the rescue disciplines that need to be addressed, moving forward the group decided to meet bi-monthly and the next meeting would be a show and tell night. Each interested company would bring out there equipment and display it.

The Chester County Technical Rescue group show and tell night was on Tuesday, 11/10/09 at 19:00 at station 38. The focus of the evening was for the rescue companies involved to display their rescue trucks, trailers, and boats to show the group individual capabilities. The turn out was much more then expected 35 trucks from 24 companies. The group had a meeting afterwards and information was exchanged meeting schedules were set up with the next agenda a work session compiling SOP's.

A review of some data over the last 8 years for Chester County revealed there were:

345 Water Rescues in the County
294 Land Based Technical Rescues
27 Rope – High Angle Rescues
13 Confined Space Rescues
6 Trench Rescues

The following is the list showing which companies are interested in what disciplines:

Water – Boat 24, 25, 35, 45, 53, Dive Team, 69

Confined Space 24, 25, 45, 47, 53

Trench 6, 53, 68, 25, 35, 45 and East Goshen acting in support roles

Rope – High Angle 24, 25, 45, 53, 68, Phoenixville Fire Department

Collapse 53, 68

Stations 38 & 39 will be acting in support roles where needed at this time.

A Technical Rescue weekend will be held on Sat 5/1/10 & Sun 5/2/10 with the following classes offered:

Rope & Rigging
Trench I
Confined Space Rescue
Water Rescue & Emergency Response

The individual stations are encouraged to pursue the Technical Rescue qualifications and certifications. The training is the key to the project's success. The remaining meetings held every other month in 2010 will be used to have each coordinating agency review the SOP for their discipline and go over status of key events such as training and certification progress. March - Water, May – Rope – High Angle, July - Trench, Sept – Confined Space, Nov – Collapse. Meetings are planned for 2nd Tuesday of the month, every other month.