What is wilderness?

Wilderness is generally defined as a natural environment that has not been modified by human activity and where people are visitors who do not remain.

The large swath of peninsular Florida identified as Central Florida contains over 50,000 acres of true wilderness, according to Wilderness Connect, a collaborative partnership between the College of Forestry and Conservation's Wilderness Institute at The University of Montana, the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. There are additionally tens of thousands of acres where the earth and its community of life remain untrammeled by people, adjacent to and within urban areas.

Do SARCF searches always take place in wilderness?

No. People can get lost in parcels of land still in their natural state close to large human populations or go missing in urban settings. ​However, no matter the search area many of the same rules and skills learned in wilderness search apply to other environments.

What are some of the qualifications of SARCF searchers?

All Search and Rescue of Central Florida (SARCF) personnel deployed on a search are certified by National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR). Their certifications include the level of SAR TECH II or SAR TECH I. Additional certification levels of SAR TECH III and SAR TECH IV are available for those desiring to serve in support roles of their team members in the field during a SAR mission.

SARCF teams are capable of searching high probability local wilderness terrain and are proficient at conducting and directing search lines or hasty search techniques. Each team is equipped with radio communications for direct contact with Incident Command (IC) during search missions. They can triangulate position, ascertain Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates on a map, and navigate in the wilderness with a compass, topographic mapping and Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

SARCF searchers can play a pivotal role in searching for tracks or articles of evidence left behind by the missing. Their training also allows them to assist in establishing a search site perimeter and preserving any clues contained with it, for law enforcement to use in an investigation of the missing. ​