Summit County Launches Emergency Siren System for Wildfire Evacuation Warnings

The Summit County Sheriff's Office added vehicle-mounted evacuation sirens to its patrol fleet on April 10, rolling out a new layer of wildfire warning technology ahead of what authorities are already calling a long fire season across the greater Park City area.

The sound is meant to be unmistakable. Sheriff's spokesperson Skyler Talbot described it on KPCW's "Local News Hour" as "an air raid siren, it's a siren that winds up and then winds down," and emphasized the distinction matters. "It's very loud, very distinct from the siren you might hear if we're going to an emergency out on the road," Talbot said. After the tone sounds, a recorded message alerts residents to exit the area by the safest route possible.

What that means in practice depends on where you are. A resident jolted awake at 2 a.m. by the rising-then-falling wail should not wait to check a phone: the recorded message that follows spells out the exit instruction. Someone caught in a power outage does not lose that safety net, because the siren runs off the patrol vehicle, not the electrical grid. A visitor walking Park City's historic Main Street who has never registered for a county alert would still hear the tone and the follow-on voice message, since the siren travels through the neighborhood rather than waiting for residents to look at their screens.

That mobility is the defining feature of the new system. Unlike a fixed outdoor tower covering a static radius, the vehicle-mounted unit allows deputies to drive directly into the streets being evacuated, putting the warning at the precise location of the threat. Summit County's landscape makes that flexibility critical: the 2018 Buffalo Mountain Fire forced more than 1,300 evacuations and came within 250 feet of homes in Wildernest and Mesa Cortina before it was contained.

The siren rollout is paired with a second piece of new wildfire infrastructure: an AI smoke detection camera installed on Lewis Peak, funded by Rocky Mountain Power. Together, they are designed to compress the window between ignition and the moment residents receive an order to evacuate.

The vehicle siren works alongside, not instead of, the county's SC Alert notification program, which delivers warnings by phone call, text, email, and the Everbridge mobile app. Residents can customize alerts by address, a feature that lets commuters who split time between Silverthorne and Breckenridge, or in this case Park City, receive coverage at both locations. Summit County changed alert providers in May 2025, meaning anyone registered under the previous system must create a new account to remain enrolled. The SC Alert app is the fastest way to verify an active evacuation order in real time; residents can also visit summitready.org to sign up or update their information.

The Sheriff's Office is adding the siren ahead of what authorities are expecting to be a long wildfire season. Until a public testing schedule is announced, any activation of the winding tone should be treated as a live evacuation notice, not a drill.