By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Fire departments saw significant call volume increases for the year 2025, according to Tucker County OEM Director Kevin White. Parsons Fire alone saw a 59 call increase over the year, White said. In past years, the City had seen increases of an average of 18 calls over the last five years. In total, Parsons ran a total of 307 calls in 2025, White said.
“This year was a huge jump,” White said.
It wasn’t just Parsons that saw an increase, White said. White also collected call volume from all Fire Departments and they all showed an increase above and beyond what has been seen in years past. Data was collected from Davis, Thomas, Bleeding Creek and Montrose, among others.
“They’re all reporting an increase in calls,” White said.
Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau accounted some of the increase to increase in driver volume on the roads. Fire crews respond to accidents and direct traffic, Roseanau said.
“It doesn’t matter what it is, they are out there with their flashlights and their flares, trying to make the oncoming traffic safer for EMS taking care of the patients to the wrecker service getting them out of the ditch,” Rosenau said. “Our Firemen are always there.”
White said it wasn’t just Fire Crews that were out there protecting the safety of Tucker County. White attributed it to a team effort across agencies. Rosenau echoed the sentiment and said that with a County as small as Tucker County, if agencies did not work together to pool resources it would cause “chaos.”
“Its a great team,” White said. “Law Enforcement, 911, Emergency Management, EMS, we all work great together.”
Rosenau said that while the Tucker County Team works well together, modern conveniences such as scanners and social media has made word of emergencies around the County spread faster than ever before and with that tend to come members of the public who will flock to see an incident unfold. Rosenau said that bystanders can impede traffic and block additional fire, EMS and emergency crews from attending the scene of an emergency, which can cost precious minutes in an emergency situation.
“When there’s an incident going on, we don’t need additional people just to see it because they are curious,” Rosenau said. “There are people there trying to save the structure, trying to save the homes around that structure. With the road blocked, any additional congestion of traffic impedes the emergency services trying to get there.”
Rosenau said that coming across a scene by accident “is one thing,” but he asked that the public refrain from purposefully going out of their way to attend active scenes simply because they heard it on the scanner or read something on Facebook or heard from a neighbor.
“I am asking you, please do not impede Emergency Services trying to respond to an incident,” Rosenau said.
Tucker County EMS Director Amanda Simmons echoed the sentiment on call volume. She said that her department has seen nearly double the amount of call volume since she started with EMS in 2018. In 2025, EMS reported approximately 1,480 calls, according to Simmons.
“If this gives you a good indication, whenever I started in EMS in 2018, we had roughly 880 calls a year. So, almost double, Simmons said.
Simmons thanked the Tucker County Fire Companies for their assistance. Simmons said without Fire assistance on many calls, her crews would be “up the creek.” Many of the Departments across the County have around 10 members that have supplied assistance on a regular basis for such basic needs as drivers, Simmons said.
“The amount of Firemen that stood up and said they liked to come in and help is…I would say I have at least 10 from each of the Fire Departments, Thomas excluded because they don’t have very many members,” Simmons said. “Most of them have 10 that can come out and say, hey, what do you need?”
