Last Thursday, the mining communities of northern Idaho's Silver Valley gathered in Kellogg to remember the 91 men who perished 52 years earlier in the Sunshine Mine Disaster — a pitch-black catastrophe of fire, gas and smoke that made the nation's most productive silver mine also one of its deadliest, and that forever changed underground mine safety in the country.

For three days this upcoming week, May 7–9, five elite mine rescue teams from Idaho and Alaska will assemble in the same town to display skills they honed with the intent of saving lives if such a disaster were to happen again. But the teams aren't just showing off their skills — although free public spectating is strongly encouraged. They're also competing against the clock and each other.

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It's all part of the 2024 Central Mine Rescue Competition in Kellogg, Idaho, about two hours west of Missoula on Interstate 90. Rescue teams from five individual mines, all of which are members of the regional Central Mine Rescue outfit based in Osburn, Idaho, will compete: U.S. Silver Galena Mine in Wallace, Idaho; Hecla Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan, Idaho; Coeur Kensington Mine between Juneau and Haines, Alaska; Northern Star Pogo Mine, 87 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska; and Hecla Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island just south of Juneau.

Idaho's Hecla Lucky Friday Mine Rescue Team members compete in injury diagnosis and first aid during a past Central Mine Rescue Competition in Kellogg, Idaho.

Crews will complete written tests Tuesday morning before hosting a first-responder and vendor expo 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Silver Mountain Resort parking lot. Wednesday's events include field competitions in the parking lot, with tasks like establishing ventilation, search and rescue, mine dewatering and underground firefighting. Later, inside the water park, crews will compete in injury diagnosis and first aid with live actors.

And on Thursday, the penultimate show: Crews will compete in aerial rope-rescue exercises near the water park entrance. After that, they'll tackle timed technical challenges like diagnosing and repairing rebreathing apparatus and gas testing devices.

"We encourage people to come and watch," Central Mine Rescue Director Bryan Stepro said Friday. "Those are all fun to see."

A full schedule with times and locations is available on the Central Mine Rescue's Facebook page, at facebook.com/61555936456104. Although the teams train to respond to incidents underground, the competition is entirely above ground to allow for judging and spectating, he said, and so teams can observe each other.

CMR, Stepro said, is composed of members of the five competing mines' rescue teams and those from three other member mines. If each mine's rescue team is like a local fire department, then CMR is like a regional incident management team, ready to assemble members from a host of local teams and respond to serious incidents around the region.

Members of Alaska's Northern Star Pogo Mine Rescue Team compete in a rope rescue exercise during a previous Central Mine Rescue Competition in Kellogg, Idaho.

Stepro said CMR has about 150 members across its eight full-time member mines but it responds far beyond those eight, covering incidents in Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and western Canada. Although none of CMR's eight full-time member mines are in Montana, the organization partners with many smaller mines in the state to provide mine rescue services, he said.

"They’re underground, they’re doing stuff, but they’re not big enough to supply their own full mine rescue team," he said. "We are available to help just because it’s the right thing to do."

Mine rescue team staffing can be somewhat like a fire department, he said, with a handful of full-time personnel — the competition teams — and a full roster of part-time personnel who have other jobs but nonetheless dedicate some of their time to mine rescue, and who may be the first to respond when something goes wrong.

And mine rescue itself, he said, could be thought of as akin to "kind of like a fire department for underground."

But mine rescue is far more complex than a structure fire or vehicle crash.

Stepro said teams include miners, geologists, engineers, electricians and mechanics. Teams are generally four to six people and can stay underground no longer than four hours — the limit of rebreather equipment. CMR responds to incidents with enough personnel to conduct 24-hour operations nonstop with teams rotating out every four hours, he said, plus a backup team on standby for every team deployed underground.

Beyond extensive training and the occasional competition, he said, CMR responds to actual incidents, "hopefully not all that often."

"But," he added, "we have to be ready for everything."

Members of the Hecla Lucky Friday Mine Rescue Team in Idaho wear rebreathing equipment as they walk through a simulated mine adit during a Central Mine Rescue Competition in Kellogg, Idaho.

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