Union County Search & Rescue

05/30/2026

Today Union and Wallowa counties’ water rescue teams conducted a joint water rescue training mission with the Oregon National Guard on the Minam River. The National Guard flew our combined water rescue teams, boats, and equipment in to Red’s Horse Ranch, and the teams then worked their way the approximately 24 miles down the Minam River to the Minam State Park.

The upper Minam is a high risk section of river full of large rocks and dangerous strainer hazards. Recreation on and near the river has resulted in increasing calls for water-related emergencies in recent years, prompting both water rescue teams to identify the area as a priority for training. The combined training mission allowed us to not only strengthen the already strong relationship between all of the agencies involved, but also become familiar with new hazards in the river and sharpen individual and team boating skills in a fast moving and rocky river environment.

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Union County Sheriff's Office
Oregon Department of Emergency Management
Oregon State Sheriffs' Association
Wallowa County Search and Rescue
City of La Grande Fire Department

05/11/2026

The past several days SAR and Union County Sheriff's Office marine patrol participated in swiftwater rescue technician training taught by Oregon Rescue. While our interagency team trains together on a regular basis, we periodically bring in professional instructors to provide initial certification training to new team members, and ensure that we stay up-to-date with advances in rescue science and curriculum.

Oregon State Sheriffs' Association
Oregon Department of Emergency Management

05/08/2026

242 HOURS SPENT LOOKING FOR MUSHROOM PICKERS SO FAR THIS WEEK

Between May 3rd and 8th, Union County SAR team members have logged approximately 242 hours searching for lost mushroom pickers on three separate incidents. That is an average of over 40 search hours PER DAY. Two searches were days apart and completely unrelated, but in nearly the exact same area. The four individuals lost across all three instances were all local to and familiar with the areas they sarted out in.

Please let these statistics impart the importance of personal preparedness regardless of your familiarity and comfort with the area you are recreating in. Be prepared with the 10 survival essentials even if you're out for a short outing, carry your phone with you, and avoid going out alone. A GPS or GPS app for your phone that works offline is an excellent tool to add a degree of safety to your outings this spring, as mushroom picking can be extremely disorienting from wandering and looking at the ground vs the horizon.

Union County Sheriff's Office
Oregon State Sheriffs' Association
Oregon Department of Emergency Management

05/06/2026

Union County SAR has been working alongside SAR teams from across eastern Oregon assisting our neighbors at Umatilla County Search and Rescue with an ongoing search incident that they are managing. Weekday operations are always challenging for volunteers' schedules, especially following a separate search we had for a lost mushroom picker west of Elgin Sunday evening through Monday morning, so we are incredibly appreciative of the 13 generous and dedicated team members who we've been able to deploy so far to assist.

04/28/2026

This weekend our water rescue team took advantage of increased streamflows to do some training and kayak-handling practice on the Grande Ronde River upstream of La Grande. This stretch of river is popular for recreation, so our team takes advantage of opportunities like this to gain familiarity with the river and in-stream hazards at different water levels. With the passage of time and high flows, obstacles like trees move in and down the river, so regular trips allow us to be aware of areas where someone, or one of us, might get into trouble.

04/02/2026

La Grande Amazon site manager, Mark Warner, on behalf of Amazon, donated approximately $3,000 worth of gear to Union County Search & Rescue today. This equipment will substantially facilitate our SAR team's ability to add two additional members to our water rescue team. The donated items included two rescue dry suits, rescue helmets, and a rescue personal floatation device.

03/24/2026

This weekend water rescue teams from Union and Wallowa counties joined together for two full days of training on the Wallowa and Grande Ronde rivers. Current and prospective water rescue team members from both counties practiced boat handling on a variety of boat types, swimming, using throw bags, and other skills. Team members also updated maps and photos of potential landing zone locations for patient evacuations, and tested radio coverage on different agencies' systems.

This type of training is invaluable for our team members to not only practice skills, but also grow familiarity and trust between teams to increase the efficiency of combined and/or mutual aid responses.

We'd like to extend a large and sincere thank you to everyone with Wallowa County Search and Rescue for making this possible, especially Kyle Bratcher, who lead the logistics and organization of this weekend's training.
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Union County Sheriff's Office
Oregon Department of Emergency Management
Oregon State Sheriffs' Association

03/17/2026

Mark your calendars!!! We are excited to announce an upcoming fundraiser from 4-8 PM on April 10th that Tap That Growlers in La Grande has generously offered to partner with us on! Tap That will donate a portion of all food proceeds from the evening to the non-profit Union County Search and Rescue Association. The SAR Association uses these funds to pay for essential SAR functions such as fuel used on missions, volunteer training, equipment maintenance and acquisition, etc. We hope to see you on the 10th for some great food and company!

03/11/2026

We recently hosted this training and invited our neighboring search and rescue teams and local fire departments. Thank you to the City of La Grande for letting us use Riverside Park for this training opportunity and for all of our volunteers and the neighboring agencies who joined us for a fun and successful day! 

03/06/2026