Summit County’s 42-member volunteer rescue team had 22 calls for service in July and just 14 in August, normally search and rescue’s busiest time of summer.
“With the Beulah fire, we were involved in that with some planning in the event we had to evacuate, and actually the first couple days, we actually did assist with some of the warnings, the advisories,” Summit County Sheriff’s Office SAR liaison Lt. Alan Siddoway said.
Siddoway said it's unclear why calls dipped in August.
Area closures from the High Uintas’ Beulah fire, which sparked Aug. 7 and is nearly 100% complete, weren’t widespread enough to totally tamp down on visitation.
Siddoway said calls to Kings Peak, Utah’s highest mountain, were lower this summer compared to 2024.
“It seems like we're very cyclic in our calls to Kings Peak,” he said. “So some years we have a dozen or more calls to Kings Peak, other years we have two or three calls.”
The Beulah fire did temporarily shut down the Highline trail and trailhead, which is a popular starting point for the Kings Peak hike.
Siddoway said he’s knocking on wood that it will be a quiet September.
Volunteer rescuers gathered for a training event at Kamas’ High Star Ranch Wednesday with two of their most common partners: South Summit Fire District and Intermountain Lifeflight.
SAR Operations Manager Canice Harte said it helps lay the foundation for teamwork in the field.
“It's really important to have these moments where we can kind of relax and get to know each other, so that when it's more tense and it's real, we all kind of can gel,” he said. “These moments are what helps build those relationships.”
Rescuers practiced loading patients into the Intermountain helicopter and working with horses from the Summit County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse.
Once the snow starts falling, SAR calls will pick up again and peak around January and February.
Over the course of 2023, the team averaged one call every four days.
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