For the first time in two decades, the Powell Volunteer Fire Department will again be dispatched from Powell.

The fire department’s calls for service and radio traffic have been handled by dispatchers at the Park County Sheriff’s Office in Cody for the past 20 years, but starting Friday, those calls will be turned over to personnel at the Powell Police Department.

In an interview, Powell Fire Chief Dustin Dicks said the switch was driven by logistics — namely, a desire to have local fire personnel paged from the same location as ambulance crews from Powell Valley Hospital.

Fire and EMS personnel are typically dispatched to the same calls, Dicks noted, but EMS crews were being directed from Powell and firefighters from Cody. The chief believes that having that radio traffic handled in one spot will work better on time-sensitive calls.

“Instead of you calling 911 and having to tell Powell PD one thing and then they switch you over to Cody and you have to say it all again,” Dicks said, “now it’s going to be, you tell one person, and they’re going to page out us and [the] ambulance at the same time.”

Making the switch

When City Administrator Zack Thorington presented the dispatch agreement to the Powell City Council this month, he framed it as a safety issue.

“If we get a 911 call for fire, we [currently] transfer it to the county, when we could just take it,” Thorington said.

The council unanimously approved the new, five-year contract with the fire department on July 21, a few days after the Park County Fire Protection District No. 1 board of directors did the same.

Powell Police Lt. Matt McCaslin, who was elected to the fire board last year, said it wasn’t his idea to make the switch, but he also likes the idea of having everything from the Powell area dispatched from the same location.

The terms are basically identical to those the fire department had in place with Park County Sheriff’s Office. The primary difference is that the fire department will now pay the city about $25,000 a year — with 3% annual increases — instead of the county.

“It’s not a money-making venture,” Thorington told the council, “but more for the safety of the citizens.”

By the numbers

The Powell fire department had 234 calls for service in 2024, according to the sheriff’s office, which represented about 1% of the Cody dispatch center’s total.

Dispatchers also fielded some 1,760 reports of controlled burns in the Powell and Clark areas last year. Farmers and other rural residents are asked to give law enforcement a heads up before burning a field or starting an open fire. That reduces the chance that a controlled burn is mistaken for a wildfire and triggers a false alarm, wasting the time of officers, firefighters, EMS personnel and dispatchers.

With this week’s dispatching switch, those in the Powell, Ralston and Garland areas should now report their burns to the Powell Police Department at 307-754-2212. Those in the Cody and Clark areas should continue contacting the Park County Sheriff’s Office at 307-527-8700.

No drama

When the fire department initially made the switch away from Powell police and over to the sheriff’s office — ending a roughly half-century-long partnership — there were some hurt feelings and bad blood. But that’s not the case now, as the department returns to the Powell PD.

Dicks has no complaints about the county’s service and said there was no particular impetus for the change. It just felt like a good time to do it, he said.

Similarly, Park County Sheriff’s Office Communications Supervisor Monte McClain has no beef with the switch and hopes it works out for the fire department.

“I just want people to be able to call 911 and get the help; I don’t care where it comes from,” McClain explained, adding, “I just want people to be taken care of.”

He said the fire department remains welcome to reach out if it ever needs anything.

“As always, we stand ready to help,” McClain said.

Powell Police Chief Jim Rhea also made a point of expressing his appreciation for the sheriff’s office.

“We can’t function without them,” Rhea said. “We work together as a collaborative team and Monte [McClain] has been fantastic with helping us and working with us.”

The chief added that he’s excited about the switch.