The Western Region of the National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC) covers the states of California, Nevada, and Hawaii. It includes limestone and marble caves, lava tubes, sea caves, talus caves, and alpine ice caves.
The Region is one of 10 in the U.S. The others are the Caribbean, Central, Eastern, Northeastern, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain, South Central, Southeastern, and Southwestern regions. The National Cave Rescue Commission received its charter from the National Speleological Society (NSS) in 1979, and serves as the Society’s representative on issues of cave rescue training and operations. It is a volunteer group developed primarily to train and track cave rescue resources throughout the United States. The NCRC is specifically NOT a functional cave rescue team, rather it provides training and development opportunities for persons and organizations engaged in cave rescue activities. Thus, while many of the persons associated with the NCRC perform rescues, they do this as members of their local rescue squads, civil defense units, or cave rescue groups. The NCRC is a component of the Department of the Administrative Vice-President of the NSS.
About the NCRC
The main focus of the NCRC is development and maintenance of a national curriculum in cave rescue operations. It maintains a cadre of qualified cave rescue instructors, who help it deliver cave rescue educational programs at the national and regional levels, in a variety of formats.
The NCRC strives to maintain working relationships with organizations engaged in cave rescue, and to maintain a professional liaison on behalf of the NSS with federal, state, and local agencies possessing jurisdiction for cave emergencies.
It also tracks the persons trained under its programs and maintains inventories of specialized cave rescue equipment that might be needed in the event of an emergency. These lists are available to providers of cave rescue services, and may best be utilized in pre-planning activities.