News Article

A bystander rescued a dog who fell through a thin sheet of ice that had formed on a Copper Mo

Two Colorado residents suffered serious injuries in a single-vehicle crash around noon Friday

A longtime Summit Fire & EMS supervisor was honored at the state EMS conference Saturday, Nov. 4, in Keystone with the Francis Mildred Women in EMS award. The Emergency Medical Services of Colorado presented Summit Fire & EMS A-shift EMS Coordinator Jill Ridenhour award named for Francis Mildred Roth, one of the first female EMS professionals in Colorado, according to a news release. Ridenhour has served for more than 30 years with Summit Fire & EMS and the former Summit County Ambulance Service.

Summit Fire & EMS recognized a Silverthorne resident for her neighborhood leadership on wildfire preparedness while also honoring its own members for public safety and life saving efforts. During the fire protection district’s three internal work-shift award ceremonies on Thursday, Nov. 2, 42 emergency responders were cited for saving lives in six separate incidents over the past year. One of those incidents involved Summit Fire & EMS crews providing advanced life support to a newborn who had gone into cardiac arrest, according to a news release from the fire protection agency.

Aided by cooler temperatures and wet weather, local officials are moving Summit County’s fire danger level from moderate to low, according to a statement from Summit Fire & EMS Wildland Division Coordinator Kyle Iseminger. “We have yet to see the drying trend we normally see in the fall,” Iseminger wrote on Thursday, Sept. 14, adding conditions and danger levels will continue to be evaluated on a weekly basis. Read more ... 

The Preliminary Site Plan to construct a fire station in Silverthorne on Blue River Parkway was approved Tuesday night by the town’s planning commission. The long-awaited station is finally on its way to Silverthorne after almost two decades of discussion. Read more ... 

Even as the wildfire season in Summit County has remained calm thus far, Summit Fire & EMS firefighters are gaining real-world experience fighting fires elsewhere in the West. A three-person crew — the second of three consecutive crews that Summit Fire & EMS will deploy this month — recently battled a wildfire near California’s southern border, amid 60 mph winds as Tropical Storm Hilary pushed into the state.

Amid a strong monsoon pattern that has brought heavy rain, thunder and lightning to Summit County over the past two weeks, local emergency officials are reminding those who enjoy the outdoors about the danger of lightning strikes.Recent storms have sometimes brought hundreds of lightning strikes per day to the county, according to Summit Fire & EMS officials, posing a real danger to hikers, bikers, golfers, campers, boaters or anyone caught outside.

The U.S. Forest Service quickly extinguished a small wildfire that a lightning strike near Frisco ignited on Monday, July 31. The small wildfire is one of several that have started as Summit County has been bombarded by monsoon weather in recent days. In the past two weeks, the Forest Service has responded to three wildfires started from lightning strikes.