Phoenix Fire Rolls Out E-Bike Teams to Cut Mountain Rescue Times in Half

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2026 — The call comes in: a hiker down somewhere on the back side of South Mountain, maybe three miles from the nearest trailhead, and the October sun is still doing its worst. Until this fall, that meant a long, heavy hike in — boots on rock, 40 pounds of gear, every minute ticking. Now the first two firefighters out of the station are rolling instead of walking. On September 23, the Phoenix Fire Department put specialized e-bike rescue teams into service, and the idea is simple: get medics to the patient in half the time, and everything after that gets faster too.

The programTwo bikes, two stations, one goal: halve the wait

The first two e-bike teams are operating out of Fire Station 28, near South Mountain, and Fire Station 45 in north Phoenix, according to the city. Each station deploys two e-bikes mounted on support trucks, along with equipment bags carrying medical supplies and rescue gear — and when air-rescue technicians are part of the response, the teams also carry equipment used during helicopter hoist operations, the city said. The department is aiming to cut response times by at least 50 percent, a target Capt. DJ Lee put plainly to FOX 10: “We’ve had over 100 mountain rescues this year already.”

Capt. Tupac Enrique, who commands one of the technical rescue teams, estimates the bikes will cut the time to first patient contact on trails by at least half, ABC 15 reported. Firefighters have answered 100 mountain rescues across the city so far this year, with 40 of them at South Mountain, Enrique said. The teams are still figuring out which trails work best with the bikes, and when the e-bikes roll, additional foot crews and air support still follow behind to assist — the bikes don’t replace the rescue, they jump-start it.

Here’s how a call works now. Two firefighters ride the e-bikes into the preserve and make initial contact with the patient, the city said. Once on scene, they manage the rescue until the additional crews arrive — and after the patient is treated and prepared for transport, the bike team leaves the trail system while continuing to send updates so command keeps full accountability. For heat-related calls especially, Enrique told ABC 15, there is a critical component to making decisions quickly and getting patients to definitive care as fast as possible.

Why it mattersThe three-mile hike

To understand why the department is betting on bicycles, picture the math of a mountain rescue. Lee told FOX 10 that some rescues have required about a three-mile hike just to reach the patient — three miles of desert trail, in the heat, carrying everything needed to treat someone who may be in real trouble. “Three miles on a bike goes way faster than hiking three miles, especially with 40 pounds on your back,” Lee said.

Speed at the start changes everything downstream. Getting to the patient fast means crews can make contact, evaluate what they’re dealing with, and start cooling measures with IV therapy right there on the trail, Lee said. Just as important, the first medics on scene can decide sooner whether the call needs a helicopter to fly the patient out quickly or a basket team to carry them out — a call that used to wait until hikers finally arrived on foot.

The crisisA hundred rescues and counting

The numbers behind the program tell the story of Phoenix summers. City records show mountain rescues climbing for years across Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak, and South Mountain: 51 incidents with 59 rescues in 2021, 54 incidents with 68 rescues in 2022, then 40 rescues in 2023, 48 in 2024, and 61 in 2025. This year was already running hot before summer even started — the department had answered 74 mountain rescues from January through May 20 alone, suggesting an upward trend heading into the brutal months, according to a city staff report.

The heat is the throughline. Patient data showed that 85 percent of people rescued during the May-through-September stretch suffered from heat-related illness symptoms, the city reported. Trail counters show thousands of people keep visiting the parks even on days when temperatures top 110 degrees. There were 17 shifts this summer where crews ran multiple mountain rescues in a single shift — 14 of them on days with highs above 100. That pattern is what led the city to start closing trails during extreme heat back in 2021, and it’s what the e-bike teams are built to answer: when the mountain keeps producing patients, the response has to get there faster.

The mountain16,000 acres of rescue calls

South Mountain is the center of gravity here, and it’s easy to see why. At more than 16,000 acres, South Mountain Park and Preserve is the largest municipal park in the United States — a genuine desert wilderness inside city limits, with some 58 miles of trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding, according to National Geographic and park guides. It was founded in 1924, when the city bought the first 13,000 acres, and it now draws millions of visitors a year to lookouts like Dobbins Point and the 14-mile National Trail.

Size is the challenge. Forty of this year’s 100-plus rescues happened at South Mountain, Enrique said — the park’s sheer scale means patients can be miles from the trailhead when something goes wrong, on terrain where trucks can’t follow. The e-bikes are designed for exactly that gap: rugged ground that eats up hiking time but rides fine on two wheels, letting a medic with an IV kit arrive while the foot crews are still lacing up.

The timingWhy October still counts

It would be easy to file this as a summer story, but the department didn’t wait for next June — and for good reason. Temperatures are still climbing even now in October, FOX 10 noted, and the rescue load doesn’t politely end when the calendar turns. Fall brings its own surge: cooler mornings lure hikers onto the trails in bigger numbers, the sun still punishes anyone who misjudges water or distance, and crews that spent the summer running back-to-back heat calls get no offseason. Putting the teams in service on September 23 means they’re working the fall shoulder season now, with a full summer ahead to prove the 50-percent target.

The precedentScottsdale proved it first

Phoenix isn’t inventing this — it’s following a neighbor that already did. The Scottsdale Fire Department pioneered e-bikes for mountain rescues, putting six bikes into service at about $4,500 each and running up to eight rescues on them within five months of deployment, KPNX-TV reported. Scottsdale officials estimated the bikes could shave up to an hour and a half off rescue response times, and Capt. Dave Folio called them “priceless” for the lives they’d already helped save. Phoenix fire officials had been eyeing the same playbook, weighing deployments at high-volume trail stations — and now the bikes are rolling at Stations 28 and 45, with crews evaluating which trails across the city they can cover next.

For now, the mission is straightforward: ride fast, treat early, decide sooner. In a city where the mountains will keep calling — summer, fall, and every 110-degree day in between — the difference between a hike and a ride might be the difference that matters.