Norfolk County Council's fire and rescue service has become the only fire service in the UK to operate a dive team after securing Government funding.
Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service has received £27,000 in grant funding from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to extend the capability of its Urban Search and Rescue Team (USAR). This will allow the Dereham-based team to undertake underwater search and recovery.
Three members of the USAR team, who already have extensive military and commercial diving experience, backed up by support provided by other USAR personnel, will be able to deploy when USAR responds to a search and recovery incident regionally, nationally and if necessary internationally. They will operate to the Police and Commercial diving regulations, which are strictly controlled.