For Kamloops Search and Rescue, 2018 was the busiest year ever in one key aspect.

The volunteer search club says it set a record by being out working for more than 72 days.

KSAR spokesperson Jen Stahn says searches for missing people took up the greatest amount of time. She says the search team had eight tasks that lasted more than 24 hours, all of which were missing person searches.

“We definitely had a lot more missing people as opposed to injuries this last year… Definitely a lot more people who were just missing in general and we weren’t quite sure where we were looking for them. Which of course adds a lot more time on, when you’re not 100 per cent sure exactly where you’re looking.

“There wasn’t really a common theme among those tasks, other than the fact that we were looking for missing people.”

Stahn says some of those searches included looking for Ryan Shtuka at Sun Peaks, and looking for Valerie Morris who was swept away in a mudslide near Cache Creek.

In total, KSAR volunteers responded to 42 call outs and put in about 3,500 task hours. Those totals are both just shy of 2017 records of 49 call outs and 3,550 hours, respectively.

Generally speaking, Stahn says call outs were closer to their home base in 2018 than in 2017, which she says is why KSAR spent slightly fewer hours on the job this past year.

KSAR says its five-year average is 36 call outs and 2,250 task hours.