Marine Rescue

The Horry County Fire Rescue Marine Rescue/Dive Team is an inland water rescue and recovery team, starting in 1991. The team is the largest in the county and covers all bodies of water within Horry County.

With this comes a large number of bodies of water including the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Horry County is a large county and roughly 10% of the land mass is water. The team dives mostly in black water and ponds, and occasionally in brackish water, with the capability of deploying multiple divers at once. The team dives in an average depth of 15-20 feet, and visibility ranges from six inches to two feet.

This unit operates out of multiple stations throughout Horry County. The operational divers are trained to the Dive Rescue International standard of Dive Rescue 1.

The team operates several vessels within the county, including a 32-foot Metal Shark, which operates in the larger waterways and ocean, a 21-foot Boston Wheler, and four Rescue One boat systems, each including a 16-foot aluminum flat bottom and a 14-foot inflatable. These boat systems are currently located in Aynor, Conway, Finklea and Little River. HCFR also has the capability to deploy underwater side scan sonar system We utilize side scan on our boats also. 

On occasion, neighboring agencies requests the Marine Rescue/Dive Team through mutual aid.