The County of Los Angeles Fire Department’s urban search and rescue (USAR) team, known internationally as USA-2, successfully completed a 36-hour training exercise and evaluation by international experts last week at the Del Valle Regional Training Center in Castaic to continue deploying to disasters around the world.

This exercise was designed to challenge USA-2’s ability to operate effectively in a simulated real-life mission. A total of 79 members and six canines, as part of USA-2, participated in the training exercise, and were evaluated by mentors and classifiers from Australia, Iceland, Qatar, South Korea, Columbia, United Kingdom, France, Singapore, Chile, and Japan.

As one of two United States based USAR teams, USA-2 deploys overseas in support of the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA), the lead federal coordinator of international disaster response. Our counterpart, USA-1, is based out of Fairfax County, Virginia. The USAID has deployed the USAR teams approximately 20 times since 1988, when the agency incorporated USAR teams into its international disaster responses.

The USAID most recently deployed USA-1 and USA-2 in February 2023 after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Türkiye and Syria.

For additional information on the life-saving humanitarian assistance and response efforts provided by USAID/BHA, click [here].