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The Mountain Home Fire Department answered 368 calls in August, and a dozen of them were fires.
Two-thirds were medical calls. Another 64, more than one in six, were lift assists, where firefighters go to a home to help someone who has fallen or cannot get up and needs no other care. Falls were the single largest category of medical call at 51, ahead of chest pain, breathing problems and strokes.
The numbers come from the department’s monthly report to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, which met Sept. 15. They show a department whose workload looks less like a fire service and more like a first-response medical agency for an aging town.
Fire Chief Kris Quick told the committee the department has run 2,616 calls through the end of August, up 263 from the 2,353 it ran over the same stretch of 2025. August alone was up from 277 a year earlier. At the current pace the department would finish 2026 near 3,900 calls, against 3,597 in 2024 and 3,402 in 2023.
Quick said last year’s numbers were low at this point and that the increase is probably closer to average than it looks. The bigger problem, he said, is stacking. The department’s two staffed stations keep getting hit with multiple calls at the same time.
The department runs 26 career firefighters and 10 paid-per-call volunteers across three shifts. Station 1 carries five people on duty and Station 2 carries three. Station 3 is unmanned and holds a reserve pumper.
August’s medical calls totaled 242. Beyond falls, the list included 27 chest pain calls, 23 breathing problems, 15 unconscious patients, 11 strokes, 10 seizures, 10 heart problems, six motor vehicle collisions with injuries, five overdoses or poisonings and one cardiac arrest.
Public service calls, the category that holds lift assists, made up another 89. That group also included 18 fire and smoke alarm responses and two carbon monoxide alarms.
The 12 fires broke down to one structure fire, two vehicle fires, three grass fires, three utility infrastructure fires, one trash fire and two other outside fires. Firefighters also handled seven hazardous situations, including downed power lines and a gas leak, and one vehicle extrication.
Seventeen calls turned out to be nothing: false alarms, controlled burns that were already authorized, cancelled runs and a few where crews arrived to find no incident.
The department’s 100-foot tower truck was out of service for five days in August while several leaks were repaired. It is back in service.
Quick also reported that retired FDNY Capt. John Ceriello, the guest speaker at the city’s Sept. 7 ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, stayed an extra day to teach a class at ASUMH on the behavior of structure fires. Ceriello spent 37 years with the New York City Fire Department, his last six as captain of Rescue 1, and now works with Underwriters Laboratories. The class drew firefighters from departments around the state and was paid for through a mix of training budget money, donations and vendor funds.
Fire Marshal Shawn Lofton completed 61 inspections in August, most of them annual fire inspections of businesses and apartment buildings, along with three new business inspections. Six came back with a failing status.
On fuel, Quick told the committee the department is in a slower stretch of its year. Pre-planning of commercial buildings and hydrant checks were finished earlier in 2026, so unless crews are on a run they are mostly at the stations, and he expects the fuel budget to hold.
The department also has two firefighters out, one who has been off for a while and one who recently returned and will be out again for about two weeks.
The Public Safety Committee meets next on Oct. 20 at 2 p.m. in the Council Chambers.
