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Photo by Hugh Carey / Summit Daily archives
After years of mergers and changing titles, Summit Fire & EMS has officially emerged as a single, consolidated fire protection district.
For decades, Summit County residents have watched as the organization slowly evolved and merged with fire departments from Dillon, Dillon Valley, Frisco, Silverthorne and Snake River. With the service’s most recent coupling with the Summit County Ambulance Service in 2019 and the formalization of the Copper Mountain Consolidated Metro District’s inclusion in the conglomerate in November, Summit Fire officials decided it was finally time to bring operations under a single banner.
“We often say people don’t worry about the logo on the door of your fire engine,” Summit Fire spokesperson Steve Lipsher said. “They just want you there quickly when they need you. And that still stands. But now we feel like we have a single identity, a single organization with a single purpose.”
Deputy Chief Bruce Farrell, who is retiring this week after 37 years in the fire service in Summit County, on the scene of the 2015 Brush Creek Fire in the Lower Blue River Valley. Farrell became a Type III plans chief with the Upper Colorado River Interagency Incident Management Team, regularly deploying out of district for weeks at a time.
Photo from Summit Fire & EMS.
Summit Fire & EMS bid farewell to Deputy Chief Bruce Farrell last week, who retired after 37 years of service with fire and ambulance agencies in the county.
Farrell, 60, officially hung up his fire boots on Friday, Jan. 29, and plans to move to Arizona with his wife, Jennifer, to spend more time fishing, boating and traveling.