Bozeman Fire Chief presents 2024 annual report; department cites rising overlapping calls and response-time challenges

Bozeman Fire Chief Josh Waldo presented the department’s 2024 annual report to the Bozeman City Commission, highlighting staffing, call trends, training and capital needs.

Waldo said the department has 67 sworn personnel and support staff and cited training and prevention work as strengths. In 2024 the department recorded 1,731 overlapping incidents — times when two or more emergency responses were running concurrently — and an increase in overall call volume after prior years’ declines tied to refined emergency medical dispatch protocols.

The department’s call mix remains weighted toward emergency medical services (EMS), which comprised about 47% of responses in 2024. Waldo noted that, compared with many U.S. departments that are 85%–90% EMS calls, Bozeman’s EMS share remains lower due to prior dispatch-priority changes but said he expects EMS demand to continue growing. Increased overlapping calls and a lack of station coverage in the city’s southwest were identified as drivers of longer response times. The department reported its 90th-percentile response time for 2024 as 12 minutes and 16 seconds for 90% of calls; that metric is sensitive to units’ positioning when overlapping calls occur.

Waldo also flagged call-processing times at the 911 center as a concern: staff reported that the center’s average processing time has grown and that the 911 advisory board had changed its benchmark from the NFPA (60 seconds 90% of the time) toward a 2 minute 30 second benchmark — a change Waldo said will affect how the department interprets call-processing performance going forward.

Accomplishments and capital

- Campus station: Fire Department opened its first public building on Montana State University property and has operated from the facility for nine months.

- SAFER grant: The department received a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant totaling roughly $4.4 million that will fund 12 new hires. The new recruits are in training and are expected to begin street duty in summer, supporting the department’s planned quick-response unit.

- New ladder truck: Waldo said a ladder truck order placed nearly two years ago remains subject to a prolonged manufacturer lead time; delivery and full outfitting could take 18–24 months.

Training and prevention

The department reported that members average substantially more training hours than national ISO expectations. Fire prevention staff reviewed more than 2,400 plans in 2024 and performed over 4,400 inspections covering new and existing buildings, events, food trucks and short-term rentals.

Operational pressures

Waldo said the department continues to shift employees to ambulance staffing to address regional EMS shortages and that, while a countywide EMS solution is under discussion with Gallatin County, the current “Swiss cheese” of overlapping resource gaps could eventually produce service holes. He reiterated the need for a fourth fire station to serve the growing southwest quadrant of Bozeman and said the department intends to put a quick-response vehicle into service in the fall once supply-chain issues are resolved.

Ending

Commissioners thanked the chief for the presentation and asked a few clarifying questions on training hours and staffing. The report conveyed both accomplishments and near-term challenges: an expanding workload driven by EMS and overlapping calls, a new but not yet fully equipped apparatus fleet, and continuing pressure on regional ambulance capacity.