Evaluating the situation
Page updated: 27 November 2020
If you're the Incident Controller, you must evaluate the situation frequently by analysing new and existing information. You need to do this to validate or update your conclusions, and to ensure that the response activity you have planned is appropriate.
Analyse the profile of the subject
The response activities you plan must be relevant to what you know about the subject. For example, the subject profile may show that the subjects are experienced climbers who have been caught in storms before and have the supplies with them to set up a tent and wait the storm out. Focusing search activity on likely camp sites would be one appropriate action based on this profile.
Analyse the environmental conditions
You need accurate and up-to-date information about the terrain or sea conditions in the area of operations. You also need accurate and up-to-date information about current and forecast weather conditions:
- in the area of operations
- in the areas SAR resources may travel through to get to the area of operations.
This information will influence the activities you plan.
Analyse debriefs from previously tasked resources
These debriefs should include:
- information about the movements of SAR resources
- images recorded by SAR resources
- information about possible gaps in search coverage
- assessments of the likelihood of finding the subject
- information about factors that may affect how easy or difficult it will be for SAR resources to detect the subject
- recommendations.
Analyse whether previous searches were effective
Every time an area is searched and the subject is not found, you must consider whether this happened because either:
- the subject was not in the area
- the subject was in the area, but the search wasn’t effective.