Silverthorne locals asked and Summit Fire & EMS answered with a fire station to call their own.
On June 4 fire officials ring the bell – their version of cutting the ribbon – on the $9.5 million station with room for a fulltime crew, fire engines and custom facilities, like a wash bay for hazmat gear.
“The safety fences have come down around our new fire station in Silverthorne, and, after the last of the building inspections, we were provided with a temporary certificate of occupancy, signifying the end of major construction,” Summit Fire posted on mid-April. “You’ll even start to see our engines and ambulances parked there on occasion as Summit Fire & EMS crews work to move in furnishings and make the place ‘home.’”
The new station, located on Highway 9 near Silverthorne Elementary, is 13 months under construction and many more years in the making. In that time Silverthorne has surpassed Breckenridge with the largest year-round population in Summit. The new Fourth Street Crossing project went vertical and one of Summit’s largest workforce neighborhoods, Smith Ranch, sold out with 214 homes. In 2021, the Ptarmigan Fire burned nearly 40 acres and forced evacuations in neighborhoods east of downtown. In 2022, a cabin in Heeney was destroyed by a holiday fire. It took more than 45 minutes to respond.
This station also takes I-70 out of the firefighting equation. As traffic on the interstate and Exit 205 continues to grow, fire engines responding from the Dillon station were sometimes swimming upstream against gridlock on busy summer weekends and snowy winter days.