New Mexico
Albuquerque Fire Rescue participates in two-day cave rescue training
CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. (KRQE) – New Mexico’s caves attract hundreds of explorers each year, but those adventures can lead to dangerous situations requiring emergency rescues, and local first responders are learning how to do them. The National Cave Rescue Commission held a two-day rescue course in the Malpais National Monument this past weekend. The instructor told KRQE News 13 that participants learned how to provide first aid in one of the most difficult environments.
“Cave rescues are particularly difficult because of the limited resources available in those environments. Caves themselves are often very large underground spaces with extended travel times, so you may not be able to get resources that you request for many hours,” said Sarah Truebe, Regional Coordinator for the National Cave Rescue Commission.
Albuquerque Fire and Rescue was one of the agencies participating in the two-day weekend training, alongside other emergency responders, volunteer search and rescue personnel, and members of New Mexico’s caving community. The training included first aid, communication skills, proper transportation of injured patients, and technical rescue. Instructor Sarah Truebe says aside from first aid, participants also learn to be mindful of the environment and how fragile the ecosystem is.
“It is very easy to get really mission-focused and to just go straight to that patient and not think a lot about the environment around you, but because these resources are so fragile and rare, we really want to take care of that resources as well, while we’re doing the rescue response,” said Truebe.
In all, 14 instructors hosted a group of 31 participants. Truebe said that between Arizona and New Mexico, there are usually one to two cave rescues a year, but said that last year they conducted six rescues. Truebe said their next training course will be held in October in central New Mexico. She said the date will be posted online once that training is scheduled.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Good to moderate air quality will persist in Albuquerque but may be worse in places where wildfires, like the Sacaton Fire, are burning Sunday.
The smoke may be little thicker to the south near the Sacaton fire into Socorro County and near Truth of Consequences. No weather advisories are in effect but we may see some showers and thunderstorms pop up this afternoon. That may mostly be over the eastern and southern counties. The Sacaton Fire might get little rain, which would be relief for the ever-growing fire.
Rain chances in the Albuquerque metro are lower — maybe 10%. We’re more likely to see a shower or storm over the East Mountains or Sandia Mountains later this afternoon.
Storms in eastern New Mexico, closer to Texas, might have some strong winds later. About the same weather is expected Monday. Highs in the 90s both days will trend back to drier and hotter weather later in the week.
By John Miller
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bob Rodgers once specialized in cave rescues, but since becoming resource officer for New Mexico Search and Rescue in 2011, he has shifted from navigating underground passages to analyzing data that shows, among other things, how often his teams are deployed.
The overall conclusion hasn’t changed: New Mexico’s more than 40 all-volunteer search and rescue teams are being called out less often, even as the total number of incidents requiring their services continues to rise.
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In 2023, for example, search and rescue teams responded to about 76% of 149 incidents involving people who were lost or injured in remote areas.
That rate has trended downward in recent years, despite a slight uptick last year: Teams responded to 50% of 187 incidents in 2024, 55% of 191 incidents in 2025 and just 40% of 75 incidents as of June 10 this year.
“Throughout the state of New Mexico, the volunteers are being called less and less to participate in search and rescue incidents,” Rodgers said. “Fire departments, county sheriffs, feel they can do it without us, and if they get into a problem, they’re waiting two or three hours, if not days, before they finally realize they needed SAR.”
As the law enforcement arm of the Department of Public Safety, New Mexico State Police can deploy search and rescue teams when circumstances require. But Rodgers said county and local law enforcement agencies, which are often first on the scene, can be reluctant to request state assistance.
He cited the case of retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William McCasland, who disappeared from his Albuquerque home in late February, as a recent example.
” The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office didn’t call for search and rescue until two days after his report was overdue,” Rodgers said. “We don’t know where he’s at, and by the time we’re called in, it’s too late.”
McCasland has not been found.
Rodgers said any delay in mobilizing the proper resources for a missing person search can significantly reduce the chances of a successful outcome.
Similar concerns have surfaced elsewhere in New Mexico.
In March, Taos Search and Rescue President Delinda VanneBrightyn said the Taos County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately contact the Department of Public Safety to dispatch volunteers after two teenagers became trapped at the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge.
“We had a very hard time getting search and rescue involved,” she said.
Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera was unavailable for comment, but he has previously said he wants to train his deputies in search and rescue techniques. For years, he and his staff have overseen responses at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, the site of numerous suicides, as well as missing person cases in the rare instances when bodies could not be located.
Still, law enforcement can benefit from search and rescue’s specialized expertise, said VanneBrightyn, who has volunteered for more than 20 years and specializes in K-9 search and rescue.
“We should be having many more missions,” VanneBrightyn said. “The sheriffs are now doing this across the state.”
A 2025 amendment to the state Search and Rescue Act requiring first responders to notify state police when a call involves “lost, stranded, entrapped or injured persons” took effect earlier this year. But state data suggests volunteer teams continue to be underused in 2026.
In some cases, declining mission numbers have caused all-volunteer teams to lose members, as volunteers find the hours they devote to training are rarely put to use.
“It has been frustrating because the sheriff doesn’t have the resources, the trained resources that we have,” VanneBrightyn said. “They are law enforcement.”
The decline in search and rescue missions in New Mexico dates to 1996, when there were 191 missions involving 4,004 personnel and 22,602 hours in the field. Rodgers said, however, that the state’s older data is less reliable than more recent records.
Speaking to the Journal last week about the state’s ephemeral waters running dry, Grant County Search and Rescue President Russ Imler said the decline in missions may also relate to more advanced wayfinding technologies, like Garmins and smartphones.
“The electronics that people carry nowadays, people aren’t getting as lost,” he said.
Meanwhile, some studies showed that search and rescue missions rose elsewhere at the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2021 study by a Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and a 2022 story by PBS News Hour both concluded that missions were creeping upward as more Americans re-entered the outdoors.
When search and rescue services are needed in the Land of Enchantment, Rodgers said trained teams can provide expertise law enforcement agencies usually don’t have — like advanced land navigation, wilderness survival and technical rope rescue skills.
They also often save hours of overtime pay and other public expenses accrued by paid law enforcement, he added.
“It doesn’t cost the taxpayers a whole lot of money,” he said, adding, “I can put 30 people on a mountain someplace and leave them there, and we are self-sufficient. We run at least 24 hours without support from anybody, and it costs me — the state of New Mexico — about $200 to run a mission. I’m not paying salary. I’m not giving them overtime. I’m not even providing them food.”
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© 2026 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.).
Visit www.abqjournal.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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