Saving Lives in Snohomish County and Beyond

Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue's mission is to search for - and to rescue or recover - those who become lost, missing, or injured while outdoors, and to educate people on outdoor safety and wilderness recreation.

Who We Are

SCVSAR is an all-volunteer organization delivering emergency response to those in need across the county’s urban and wilderness areas. We have over 300 dedicated members, and perform more than 120 life-saving missions each year - logging over 9,500 hours of service. Our capabilities include wilderness and urban search, K-9 search, helicopter rescue, tracking, 4x4 rescue, technical swift-water and mountain rescue, and emergency first aid.

We operate in coordination with the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office (SCSO), and partner with surrounding counties in supporting each other through mutual aid.

In an emergency, always dial 911.

Every SCVSAR mission is performed free of charge.

Our continued operation relies on the private donations of businesses and individuals.
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Our Stories

I just sent you a donation because your last newsletter sent me down memory lane. About 60 years ago, I was a member of Explorer Search and Rescue, a bunch of teenage kids that assisted Mountain Search and Rescue and […]

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I first started when the Oso slide happened. I had a very dear friend of mine that lost his brother in the slide, and just being a person of the community I had to do something to help. The first […]

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I moved to Washington in November 2007 and shortly after I started getting into hiking and mountaineering. I was a relatively new hiker, just learning about the mountains and gear and navigation and on June 21 2009 I went hiking […]

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“Three Teens Trapped on Three Fingers Mountain” the news read back on Tuesday evening through Wednesday evening, August 26-27, 2008. Those were the “best-worst days” of our lives, since one of those teens was ours (and another we had custody […]

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Our Blog

Fall 2023 Fundraising Letter

The 2023 SCVSAR fundraising letter is now available here.

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Fall 2023 Newsletter

The SCVSAR Fall 2023 newsletter is now available here

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Three Fingers Mountain Rescue

Press release from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office: On June 17 around 9:30 p.m., our on-call Search and Rescue (SAR) coordinator was paged for a mission in the area of Three Fingers. It was reported that three distressed hikers were […]

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Flowing Lake Weekend Event and “Where the Rope Ends” Film Premier

On the first weekend in October, that one that felt more like summer than summer, SCVSAR had the opportunity to host several out-of-county teams for a weekend of training.  Oftentimes, search and rescue teams do not get the chance to […]

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Unpaid Professionals:  It’s not what we do; it’s WHY we do it!

Why spend hours equivalent to a part time job…without the pay?  Why spend untold hundreds and thousands of dollars on your own equipment, training, vehicle wear and tear, and missed work (shhh…don’t tell the boss). Why miss family events? Let’s […]

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