Public Records Request

“What gets measured, gets managed” – this saying applies to rescues on the trails too. But even though things gets measured, we can’t use it until it’s made public.

This is why we have filed a public records request to get more specific data related to the 213 mountain rescues in 2024.

The City of Phoenix, AZ USA shares data from all service calls that the Phoenix Fire Department responds to. This allows the public to understand how their tax dollars are spent on and what is going on in their city. The public dataset for the fire department incidents shows the date / time stamp, the type of incident (e.g. fire, medical, propane leak, mountain rescue) and the address.

While this is a good start, it does lack specific info that help the community understand what happened (heat issue, dehydration, an injury, a medical issue, a fall or a navigation issue?), some general indication who this happened to (state of residence, tourist vs. local, age category) and where this happened (we know where the Fire Department goes, but we don’t know if the call came from a trail or the trailhead and if so what trail).

This can be done without violating any relevant privacy laws and without disclosing any personally identifiable information and the additional data about the incidents is already present in the Phoenix Fire Department record management system, based on the call logging and dispatching information.

Why would this be useful ? To make us, the trail user population aware of the safety risks of certain areas and to better guide and understand policy decisions.

If the city and the fire department are as serious about lowering the number of rescues as we are, there should be no problem with providing the public with the information that is needed to take real action.

We will update you here on the status of our request.