A number of interesting articles have come out lately. For your vicarious amusement:

Pandemic Wilderness Explorers Are Straining Search and Rescue
This one may have been posted in the past.

Utah climber accused of making false report to get helicopter evacuation off Denali
And another version of this story:
Doctor Charged With False Report to Summon Helicopter on Denali
It seems that this case was egregious enough that the NPS made the unusual step of pressing federal charges.

Treasure Hunter Who Got Lost in Yellowstone Must Repay Cost of Rescue
Another case where the NPS decided to play hardball.

You Got Lost and Had to Be Rescued. Should You Pay?
In the past I've always said "No", but I'm beginning to rethink that. I now believe that in the most blatant cases of irresponsible behavior, it is appropriate to recover costs, and in some cases press criminal charges.

In other news (don't have the link handy), since the start of covid19, sales of backcountry ski gear have increased over 100%. Of course we can be sure that all of those new backcountry skiers will take an avalanche course, become competent wilderness navigators, and learn some basic winter survival skills? Right?
And they will not call 911 on their cell, nor punch the SOS button on their InReach, except when in a true emergency situation, after making every reasonable effort to self rescue and/stabilize the situation? Right?

I think it's just a political decision to either make rescue free or paid. We see both options in Europe. Not really an issue. Get insurance if you need it, I have.

Throughout most of the USA, wild land SAR has been free, except for really egregious conduct, along the lines of NPS policy. In many, if not most, jurisdictions, volunteers contribute most of the time and labor, holding down costs.

For several decades, I offered my services freely to local SAR efforts, which also included educational efforts which concentrated on younger kids.

Showing people the right way is much more effective than charging them for services. Are you charged directly for fire and police protection in your community?

The articles referenced were behind a paywall and hence, not read

One other comment. There is an optimum activity level for SAR volunteers. Too little, and attention lapses, along with readiness. Too much, and strains begin to show. An uptick in calls is not necessarily a bad thing...

Fire, medical and police are paid by tax money. Although in some cases they can charge it when abused/negligence (for example broken automatic firedetection system that alert the fireservice, that hasn't been fixed after several false alerts)

Mountain/wilderness, depends. But it is common to known when it's paid.

Paid or unpaid rescue, education and warning signs are widespread.

It depends a lot on location. if a location gets popular then you have a lot more people coming to see it. If you have a lot more people coming then you have more people who are less than prepared and get more calls and therefore get more strain on resources and then they have to make the decision to charge.

Not everywhere. I grew up in a volunteer area and they are still volunteer for fire and first responders and there is no more local town police.

On thing about charging for rescue; it tends to deter use of the service, which can have bad consequences.

Yes, tax money funds public safety services, but generally you are not given a bill when utilizing those services.

Over the years in my local area, SAR has evolved from a basically incompetent activity to a basically effective community asset, mostly based on improvement of volunteer capability in response to a demonstrated need. IMHO, the taxpayer gets a pretty good deal....

Like most problems of this general nature, the practical solution would probably have both an educational component and an enforcement component. If education by itself would be effective, that would be excellent, but these articles are suggesting that it may be necessary to increase the penalty/enforcement part.

Now, for example, consider two ways of enforcing safe speed limits. The way we do it (in US, at least) is to set a specific speed limit, with a 3-digit fine for violation, and fairly frequent enforcement. We could have done this this differently: we could have said, "Drive as fast as you want, but if your speed gets you into an accident, you pay a $50,000 fine." The second method might be more appealing to some, but I don't think that would have been an effective law enforcement policy, because people are bad judges of risks and low probability events.

Right now, the potential threat of a huge payment for SAR services in the case of an extremely unlikely event seems like the second method - hard to make an impression on casual hikers.

I wonder if something like this might help - although the big-brotherish aspects of it are concerning. Suppose there was a sign at popular trailheads that said, "$25 fine if you are found on this trail without a water bottle and a flashlight." It would immediately start educating people in a more concrete and immediate way that hiking without a few essentials is malpractice. Sort of like a seatbelt law for hiking.

I don't know if this would actually be a good idea, but I think it might be more effective than expecting clueless hikers to read about a big fine that once a year someone in the country had to pay for SAR.

Even though my fishing and hiking is more random/infrequent these days compared to years past, I always buy a fishing license every year because of this:

In a couple of those cases a fine or a fee for rescue is appropriate. The guy that falsely claimed a medical emergency should be prosecuted IMO. SAR didn't want to sent a chopper for safety reasons, so sending 'em out when it's not safe risks lives for no reason.

My opinion is that egregious conduct resulting in a SAR callout should be prosecuted criminally, especially when someone makes knowingly false claims. But as with all laws, I also believe that the law should spell out clearly what is and is not egregious.

Close to where I used to live, North Shore Rescue (busiest SAR in North America) have had a longstanding policy on why SAR does not charge for rescue.

https://www.northshorerescue.com/about-us/not-charging-rescues/

Thanks for a well reasoned, cogently statement on this position. Their position is absolutely correct.

As a former SAR member in Colorado her a small fee is levied on hunting and fishing license for SAR , Hikers etc can purchase rescue coverage also

Aksar mentioned criminal activity. On at least two occasions, we were involved in rescuing victims involved in criminal activity, in one case at significant risk to all involved. Rescue first and ask questions later.....

Not all victims are blameless little darlings.

I don’t recall mentioning “criminal activity”. Please don’t credit me with statements I didn’t make.

One of the linked articles did notethat NPS is pressing charges against the MD for making false statements and trying to delete text messages associated with those statements.

Unless the bogus calls are excessive, the SAR group could write the bogus call off as training. I think just certain areas where popularity leads to increased amount of visitors and some of those visitors, due to "normalcy bias" do go out unprepared and cause an excessive amount of calls.

What I r3callfrom my SAR exprieence is the unpredictability of the evnt at the outset. Routine calls become major events and what seem like big deals become trivial. All provide valuable experience (= training).

We endured a spate of bogus ca.lls at one time. Turned out that the perps were some of our own trainees, a little too eager for action. A generous donation of gear halted further action by thee sheriff.....

Apologies...poor phrasing on my part...

Pretty much everyone we rescued with Tahoe Nordic SAR made some kind of contribution afterwards. A few became search members, some helped with fund raising or education, some just gave a whole bunch of money. Even the most bone headed people had such a challenging experience they were super grateful for the help.

Helicopter rides are not usually free as the laws say commercial ambulance services must be used first if practical. The military ones are used if their special machinery is needed or if the commercial ones aren't available.