A dog is searching through a pile of rubble in the mountains above Santa Paula, looking for a buried person, like after a major earthquake.
But, it's a drill. The dog quickly finds the person, who is hiding in a barrel in a giant debris cement pile.
On the 30th anniversary of the massive Northridge earthquake, teams are here training at the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation Ranch, in Wheeler Canyon, for future emergencies.
"Dogs are trained to find the strongest human life scent source, and when they do that, they know that they need to bark," said Denise Sanders, who is the Senior Director of Communications and Search Team Operations for the Foundation.
She said that the dog is then rewarded with its favorite toy to play with. The dog thinks it's a game, in which it gets to play when it finds someone. "To them, it's a game of hide and seek, but to us, we know the stakes are much higher," said Sanders.
While some dogs, and handlers are training, there’s also a state search and rescue task force at the ranch. They are also using the prop areas which look like real life disaster scenes to train.
"They are working on our industrial park area, which looks like a train wreck, with several cars turned on their side," said Sanders.
They also have a area which looks like a collapsed freeway, and a huge debris pile with vehicles, because first responders never know what they are going to face at a disaster site.
There are search and rescue teams from throughout Southern California at the Ventura County ranch for the training effort.
Jeff Adams is Special Operations Assistant Chief with California Office of Emergency Services Fire And Rescue. He said they have the Northridge quake anniversary in mind as they train.
"Today, we are exercising California Regional Task Force Two, which is made up of seven different fire departments from the LA County area," said Adams.
They are working on rescue scenarios they might find post-earthquake. He said they moved the training date to fall on the anniversary of the Northridge quake, to emphasize the importance of preparedness.
He notes we are much more prepared to deal with a major quake than we were 30 years ago.
Adams said we’ve added more specialized teams to deal with disasters like an earthquake, and the number of teams continues to grow,
And, there are many more highly trained search dog teams, with the numbers also growing thanks to the Search Dog Foundation.
