This is the first article in a two-part series exploring what modern emergency medicine looks like in the Wasatch Back, and how departments like Park City Fire District, North Summit Fire District and South Summit Fire District are improving care. While people might picture firefighters running into burning buildings, the reality is far more likely to involve cardiac arrests, ski injuries, airway emergencies and split-second medical decisions made in the back of an ambulance rather than an actual fire. The Park City Fire District was dispatched to 3,367 emergency medical services incidents in 2025, making up over half of the year’s call volume, according to its annual report. It’s a trend seen in much of the nation. From 2020 to 2024, around 3% of calls involved departments responding to fires, while around 66% were for medical calls, according to the National Fire Protection Association. That’s about what departments in Summit County see, according to the most recent data. For Park City Fire, EMS continues to account for approximately 60% of the annual call volume.  Park City Fire covers approximately 110 square miles in the city proper and extends into the Snyderville Basin with eight stations, Dean said, though the geographic area could easily house 30. One of those stations, located in Summit Park, is used for wildland firefighting, but Dean said seven is still plenty for the population. The South Summit Fire Protection District, which took on its own EMS services two and a half years ago, is similar to Park City Fire. About 60% of South Summit Fire calls are for medical services, according to Chief Scott Thorell. Just based on the makeup of the district, which includes backcountry areas, South Summit Fire receives more fire calls than other departments, a broader term including brush fires and smoke scares as well as gas leaks and fire alarms.  South Summit Fire covers Kamas, Francis, Marion, Oakley, Peoa, Woodland and other unincorporated areas of Summit County, matching the South Summit School District boundaries.  “My district’s 400 square miles, but our response area is about 1,600 square miles,” said Thorell.  Thorell said fire departments are more often seeing closer to 80% EMS calls. That’s true in the North Summit Fire District, where medical calls increased slightly from last year. EMS accounted for 70% of calls in the first half of 2026, according to a July 9 operations update. The remaining calls were 8.4% fires, 7.4% brush fires, 7.4% fire alarms, 3.5% other, 2.3% utility problems, and 1% hazardous materials. At North Summit Fire District, like many fire departments across the nation, emergency medical services calls make up 70% of its call volume. Credit: Screenshot of North Summit Fire District monthly statistics reportAt North Summit Fire District, like many fire departments across the nation, emergency medical services calls make up 70% of its call volume. Credit: Screenshot of North Summit Fire District monthly statistics report North Summit Fire has three ambulances and covers 500 square miles, including Coalville, Henefer, and areas of Echo, Upton, Hoytsville, Wanship, Rockport State Park and everywhere in between. The coverage area is from mile marker 150 on Interstate 80 to the Wyoming border, and from the Morgan County line to just outside of Peoa. It includes two freeways, railroads, two large reservoirs, the Weber River and many private and public recreation areas. “We run a lot of calls on Interstate 80. We have a lot of crashes, a lot of people caught in distress,” said Battalion Chief Tyler Rowser. “We cover 55 miles of interstate freeway, so we have a lot of freeway for things to happen on.” Part of the shift away from structural fires comes as construction, building codes and electricians continue to improve, said Park City Fire District Captain Michael Dean, who oversees training. That’s why Dean said 100% of Park City Fire’s 109 employees are cross-trained and certified as firefighters and advanced emergency medical technicians who can perform CPR, among other high-level medical care. “Everyone in our department, starting the first day of camp, is capable of running a cardiac arrest. That’s a minimum standard for us,” Dean said. “When we get really busy, you don’t know who’s coming; you need to know how to do your job.” Now, each of Summit County’s three fire departments has full-time, cross-trained employees — a change for the East Side, which previously relied on a staff of volunteers and Park City Fire to provide EMS. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, only 9.6% of registered fire departments are full-time. In Utah, 64.6% are fully volunteer departments and 21.2% operate as mostly volunteer departments, relying on unpaid community members trained for some services.  Park City Fire became an official, structured department in 1975, building from an unofficial volunteer base that started operating even before the mining town was incorporated in 1884. The district began providing full-time emergency response and set up regular full-time crews and shifts in 1984. Thorell said South Summit, on the other hand, is a “fledgling” full-time department, only making the shift about a year and a half ago. He was hired as the first full-time chief in 2024. Before, South Summit used a part-time, volunteer model. The shift provides career opportunities for its staff and results in significantly improved response times and outcomes, Thorell said.  North Summit Fire District opens its new Station 22 in May with the cutting of a “red ribbon” firehouse. The new station is one way the district is expanding to meet needs, especially emergency medical calls. Credit: Jonathan Herrera/Park Record North Summit’s department became full-time around 2023, said Rowser. The department’s first full-time chief was hired in 2022 after North Summit Fire was reorganized in the wake of allegations of insubordination. Not only does being cross-staffed improve medical outcomes, but Dean said it also allows Park City Fire to create careers. “Combining the two allows us to actually have careers,” Dean said. “I think the public benefits greatly from having professionals do it every day, for their job.” From call to ‘haul’ While Park City Fire boasts a top-of-the-line medical program, emergency medicine always begins in the community, Dean said. “That’s where medicine starts. It starts with the phone call,” he said. “The sooner it starts by CPR and an AED, the better the chance of survival because there’s still a delay from the phone call to dispatch.” In his decades-long career in emergency medicine, Dead said dispatch advancements have made that initial response, whether to cardiac arrests or even field births, much more effective. Rowser, who started as a volunteer firefighter with North Summit in 2001, also noted the importance of improved 911 dispatch data over his 25 years. Now, when a person calls 911, operators can give instructions on CPR — cardiopulmonary resuscitation via chest compressions and rescue breaths — or AED use — Automated External Defibrillator, a portable, life-saving medical device that can deliver an electrical shock — over the phone. There are also internal timers that remind people to check for a pulse every two minutes, and dispatchers are trained to provide moral or emotional support to callers, which is especially important for those navigating the fear and stress of an emergency moment. “If no one did CPR before we got there, no matter how cool we are, we’re not solving a problem,” Dean said. “Something has to be done before we get there.” The “getting there” has improved, too. During Park City Fire’s peak season, when the resorts are open, the district runs five ambulances out of seven stations, and sends the closest appropriate unit to the problem. The South Summit Fire Protection District partnered with AirMed in May 2024 for a training class on hot loading. Credit: Photo Courtesy of the South Summit Fire Protection District One of the biggest improvements in Park City Fire response times was the introduction of a hot load program in 2020 with Airmed, which reduced average scene times from 20 minutes to six.  In the past, crews would wait on scene for Airmed to arrive. But the program now designates four landing zones along ambulance routes, allowing crews to transport patients and perform a “hot load,” where the helicopter pilot keeps the aircraft running and ready to lift off immediately after the patient is placed.  Thorell said increased staffing is the biggest improvement for South Summit Fire. The department went from two advanced emergency medicine technicians in its first year to four available 24/7. South Summit Fire also runs a second ambulance 12 hours a day with two trained medical technicians, and has a single paramedic and a rescue unit almost 100% of the time. Thorell said adding personnel across three stations and having full-time staff improved response times by four minutes, which is a life-changing amount of time. “A fire doubles in size every minute,” Thorell said. “It takes four minutes for your brain to die of oxygen depletion. So those four minutes are a pretty amazing improvement already.” However, Rowser said rural areas and remoteness can make response times more challenging for North Summit firefighters. “If you’re in the valley, you can call for an ambulance and somebody will be there in five minutes. We have those long response times because we have to drive so far, or we drive somewhere, but then we have to drop a trailer with an ATV and get on an ATV and go into the backcountry,” he said. “Time and distance work against us in getting to people fast.” Despite those challenges, North Summit Fire also reported a downward trend in response times. Average times from dispatch to arriving on scene range from 8.68 to 12.93 minutes. June’s average was 10.59 minutes, compared with 13.77 minutes during the same time last year. “With people being staffed in the fire station 24/7, they’re right there,” said Rowser. “(With) the old system of being on-call from home, you’d have to get the call; it was the middle of night, you had to get up and get dressed, and then drive to the fire station, and then from there wait for everybody else to get there, and then respond to the call.” After arriving, each fire department said caring for patients is the mission, regardless of status, insurance coverage or citizenship. “We take care of everyone here. The joke’s always been, ‘You call, we haul,’” Dean said.  Thorell agreed.  “We do it with empathy, try to treat everybody equally,” he said. “We’re in a challenging environment where we have billionaires and ranchers and tourists. So we try to treat everybody equally and professionally.” What’s different in the Wasatch Back The path toward certifying personnel as critical care paramedics is where Park City Fire is headed, Dean said, one of the many ventures that sets the department apart from others in the state.  But it’s not just the high-level qualifications that make services in Park City and Summit County unique. From an organizational standpoint, it’s unusual for each district to own ambulances. According to a 2020 survey by the National Fire Protection Association, 63% of all fire departments provide emergency medical services, and only a quarter of those departments provide ambulance services. Park City Fire, South Summit Fire and North Summit Fire are in the top 15%.  Ambulance services have been part of the Park City Fire for over half of its 50 years in existence: In 1996, the Park City Fire District contracted with Summit County to provide ambulance services to the residents of Park City with two full-time staffed ambulances. Before then, Park City Fire worked with a paid-call ambulance service operated through Holy Cross Hospital. Dean said more often fire departments, like the one in Salt Lake City, will contract out ambulance services.  All of the Park City Fire District rigs are equipped with medical supplies, from splints to advanced cardiac monitors. Credit: Park Record file photo by Jack Casebolt As for the usual patients, Dean said Park City generally is a healthier community. “Park City is unique. We’re a little different. Our patients are usually fitter. They’ve had healthcare their whole lives because they’ve had resources, so they’re just healthier, happier people,” he said. “People with cardiac and respiratory problems, chronic ones, don’t live up here. You can’t breathe.” Of course, ski tourism can bring people outside that healthier demographic to town. But Park City Fire still doesn’t generally see the daily medical emergencies that a department in the valley might, Dean said. Winter is the busy season for Park City Fire due to ski tourism, though Dean said he’s seen visitor traffic increasing over the summer. South Summit is also busier in the winter due to an increase in snowmobilers heading into the backcountry. Summertime is the busiest time for North Summit Fire from the influx of recreationists at state parks like Rockport and Echo. The fire department also sees more traffic in the fall with hunting season. Besides being the busy season for Park City and South Summit, winter brings the most challenging weather for all fire departments. To be prepared, South Summit Fire put together what Thorell calls a “backcountry insertion package” to improve response times while waiting for search and rescue to arrive. Department snowmobiles, a side-by-side and four e-bikes help personnel reach patients quickly. “We bought specialized packs, specialized monitoring equipment, specialized communication to try to accomplish that mission,” Thorell said. “We’re still working on it, still refining it. It’s something that creates quite the challenge and a heightened risk for my personnel as well.” Medical helicopters are also often grounded during snowstorms because they can only fly by line of sight, so that resource is often unavailable during the winter. However, the fire districts are well equipped for a mountain town. The fire chiefs meet at least quarterly to discuss issues and possible solutions in the Wasatch Back. They also have equipment for joint efforts and search and rescue efforts, such as motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, drone teams and even access to a Department of Safety helicopter with infrared search capabilities. “We all get along, and it’s miraculous that we really don’t care where the borders are,” Thorell said. “We just want to focus on what the mission is and how to best meet it, how to best manage the resources that we send.” The post Answering the call: The growing role of EMS in Summit County fire districts appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less