Good question, what does trigger SAR? At one extreme, there was the lady who called and said her son was overdue - he had told her he would return at 5PM. It was then 5:20, the weather was good, etc..."Uh, lady, let's wait a few minutes, shall we? Call me back in about half an hour, please"...Ten minutes later he walked in the door.

On the other end, a call reporting injury, someone hearing cries of distress, etc., will usually spark the operation. On occasion, we have launched preemptively - hiking into an area threatened by a forest fire to look for any campers who might be in danger, for example.

Protocols vary, but in many circumstances the search will not begin until the following morning, absent any reason to the contrary. Everyone deserves at least one opportunity to commune with nature under the starry sky.

If the sky was not starry, we usually went out sooner, sometimes right into the teeth of an advancing storm. It's a judgment call, but it is better to start too soon, rather than too late. You don't like to say to yourself, "if only we had gone out that evening, they would be alive today."

I doubt that the lady received any bill for the efforts made on her behalf. The NPS does bill for really egregious cases, like the dolts at Grand Canyon who triggered their PLB three times in two days, once because the water was too "salty."

The problem with overzealous charging is that it tends to inhibit asking for help, and then people will die unnecessarily. As a practical matter, their pockets aren't that deep or collection isn't possible because they skipped, etc. Many times it is just your tax dollars at work and I would submit that they are used pretty well.

In my experience as a volunteer searcher, the cost to the taxpayer is surprisingly low. The foot troops were unpaid; when we called for a helicopter, it was an Air Force bird whose use was charged to training (most of the pilots loved our missions; they had flown in Nam and our jobs were much more interesting than their regular duties).

The same was true for me. Once' plodding through the analysis of pottery on the floor of a twelfth century pueblo, we were called to help an injured hiked. Three hours later, after engaging in a life saving operation, I resumed my duties, feeling much better. My SAR pager saved me from many a dull pointless meeting. I typically took annual leave while absent on SAR work, although I did take full advantage of an obscure regulation that allowed forty hours of administrative leave for such cases. I arranged my schedule so that I did not work Mondays since that often was a SAR day. Again, tax dollars well spent, IMHO.

My experiences were primarily as a member of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, quite a few years ago. Current practices in other jurisdictions may well vary.