Ready for rescue in the San Francisco Bay

Well it has been just over a week since the deadly boating disaster in the San Francisco Bay. Two people were killed when that capsized and tonight two people remain missing. 16 people were rescued from that vessel as a flurry of first responders and nearby fishermen leapt into action to try to save those passengers and that response included dozens of San Francisco firefighters and this week the department is now in the middle of its week-long training readying those rescue swimmers to operate the department's boats. KTVU's Crystal Bailey gives us a look at how crews prepare for these life or death situations. It's training week for San Francisco's fire department. Crews working on their boat operator certification are preparing for the next big rescue on some of the most unpredictable waters. So we have three stations today. It's a program that only happens once or twice a year and in light of the deadly sinking of the 50-foot cabin cruiser last week it's that much more crucial. It's a tremendous amount of training that we do because these waters you know it's not like responding out on you know Folsom Lake or you know maybe inland more we deal with some pretty treacherous waters. Italian chief Robert Stiles leads the surf rescue program focused on marine emergency response. It's a week-long 40-hour class state fire training curriculum that we use. The 1700 member fire department has 350 firefighters who are trained to handle water rescue. We have so much water you know our city's three three-sided by water I think 220 you know miles of coastline that we have and you know and it's active it's got a large population. Between 2018 and 2024 the fire department saw an average of about 90 rescues per year in the bay alone. Another 50 when you count open water and cliff rescues but an actively sinking boat with 20 people on board is not something that happens often. It's rare to have mass casualty incidents in the water we're usually going on one maybe two people but yes trying to find a single person in the water in open water is very difficult. Nearly three dozen firefighters of the SFFD across 15 units responded to the Volare disaster including some of the people training this week. We'll start with the motors just straight. As part of Wednesday's course they're learning about the added challenge of rescuing someone from a boat. You know it's easy to teach someone to put on gas in your open water but eventually you come into something hard whether it's picking a victim up in the water so you got a victim on board now now you're trying to bring them into a dock you have to be able to dock them quickly. Before the firefighters can learn how to drive the boats they first have to pass the surf rescue course which is about a week long starting in a pool and ending in open water near Ocean Beach. The boats are equipped with imaging technology and an infrared camera that picks up heat signatures for swimmers within half a mile day or night no matter how choppy the waters get. It's all about getting to getting people out of the water right. As investigators work on salvaging the sunken boat 120 feet below the surface questions remain about what caused the catastrophe and in the chance of another water emergency on the bay San Francisco firefighters are ready. In San Francisco Crystal Bailey KTVU Fox 2 News.