Most mountain rescues are for Arizonans, not out-of-towners, Phoenix Fire says
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — During the spring, when Arizona sees an influx in tourists, a lot of people might assume they are the hikers getting rescued most often but Phoenix Fire says that is far from the truth. In fact, new numbers show that most mountain rescue calls are locals.
From 2021 through this year, Phoenix Fire says 437 Arizonans were rescued off our mountains. That is 71% of all mountain rescues, with out-of-state visitors making up the remaining 29%. The states that saw the highest number of mountain rescues behind Arizona were California, Texas and Illinois.
On Monday, firefighters had a challenging technical rescue on a steep part of Camelback Mountain, near the second set of railings. A woman was injured, and it wasn’t safe for a helicopter to hoist her out, so they used a combination of equipment to carry her back to the trailhead. She is recovering, and fire crews say she is from Arizona.
Phoenix Fire started compiling data about where rescued hikers live in 2021. That’s when the city started closing some hiking trails on excessive heat warning days.
“When we started going to these city parks board meetings, we did hear a concurrent theme of, ‘Hey, why are you penalizing local folks when most of your mountain rescues are from people out of town?’ And we actually started kind of thinking that might be the reasoning too,” Phoenix Fire Capt. Rob McDade said. “We actually found out that three out of every four mountain rescues are people that live here in Arizona. Not only that, majority of them live right here in the Valley.”
These numbers blew the department, city leaders, and locals away. “Interesting to hear for sure,” hiker Jake Arnold said.
“It’s possible that maybe people underestimate the threat and that maybe they get confident that, hey, we can make this,” hiker Matt Middendorf said.
Phoenix Fire said that last year, there were 159 mountain rescues in the city and 111 of those were Arizona locals. The numbers are much lower when looking at visitors. Only six rescues involved people from Illinois, six from Texas, and five from Ohio, with similar numbers the two years prior. “It was eye-opening to us,” McDade said.
He added the most common rescue was for a hiker who was either dizzy, overheated or weak. But right behind that were hikers who had injured their ankle or foot.
Local hikers are now giving advice to their fellow hikers. “Regarding water, it’s a lot easier to go hands-free, just to carry like three liters. Even if you don’t need it, it’s better to have it,” Middendorf said.
“Don’t get fooled by the fact that it’s a beautiful day and then go in the middle of the day,” hiker Rick Flores said.
Phoenix Fire says they are always able to learn from data. In this case, McDade says they are going to work on their messaging when it comes to hiking safety and make sure they are finding new ways to really get the word across to the locals.
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