Fire and EMS departments already hold the data that shows which responders are carrying the heaviest load. Calls that interrupt sleep, exposure to traumatic scenes, hours on scene at a structure fire, overtime, and sick leave all live in a department's CAD, ePCR, RMS, and staffing systems. The challenge is that those systems sit apart, so the pattern that points to burnout stays invisible until someone resigns, gets sick, or is lost.
That gap was the subject of a webinar we hosted titled "The cost of waiting: using fire and EMS data to catch burnout, protect responders, and reduce risk." I'm Dr. Peder Humlen, a Public Safety Executive at Peregrine. I spent 28 years in public safety and retired as a deputy chief with Ada County Paramedics, and caring for responders has mattered to me for my entire career. I led the conversation alongside a friend of 25 years, Chief Aaron Hummel of the Boise Fire Department.
Chief Hummel has served at Boise Fire for 31 years. He started as a Navy firefighter, spent 26 years on the line in operations, moved up to division chief of operations in 2021, and was promoted to fire chief in November 2025. Employee wellness is one of the four pillars in Boise Fire's master strategic plan. Here is what stood out from our conversation.
Watch the full webinar on demand.
Hear Chief Aaron Hummel and Deputy Chief (ret.) Peder Humlen, Ph.D. walk through the data, the policy levers, and a live demo of the wellness report card. Watch the recording or book a demo to see it with your own data.
If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Why first responder burnout and PTSD risk keeps growing
Chief Hummel opened with a reflection that reframed the whole discussion for me. Early in his career, he wondered why his generation talked so much about PTSD when his predecessors seemed fine. Then he looked at the history of organized EMS. Boise Fire did not begin providing consistent EMS service until 1983, and Ada County Paramedics formed in 1975. When he was hired, most of the captains he worked with were Vietnam-era veterans, and conversation about mental health was rare. Crews leaned on dark humor and moved on to the next call.
"What I have come to realize is we really are just a couple of generations removed from the infancy of organized EMS where we are attending to numerous deaths and traumatic events pretty much every time we come to work in our busy areas. And there's a cumulative impact on that."
Chief Aaron Hummel, Boise Fire Department
Everyone carries a cell phone now, crews are called earlier, and they respond to more lower acuity calls than they did a generation ago. I saw the same shift from my side of the system. A slower system gives crews time to reset between calls. Crews in that environment can process what they experienced, put each call in context, and then move to the next one.
Today many crews run constantly with little time to process what they have seen. Both of us dated our awareness of the problem to the same period: the suicides that hit our ranks across the Treasure Valley, in fire, EMS, and law enforcement. Chief Hummel put his own turning point about 15 years into his career. By then he had watched colleagues who started full of energy change, dealing with substance abuse and strained marriages. In 2019, he lost a close friend and fellow Navy veteran in his battalion to suicide, after years of helping him through on-the-job injuries and a difficult workers' compensation process.
"That was a defining moment in my career. It hurt really bad. And I realized we need to do more in the wellness space."
Chief Aaron Hummel, Boise Fire Department
That experience is part of why personnel wellness became a strategic priority for Boise Fire, and why he agreed to join this conversation.
The numbers behind first responder wellness
The research gives departments a clear picture of the stakes:
- PTSD: A systematic review and meta-analysis found a pooled 12-month PTSD prevalence of 20.0% among paramedics, against 3.1% in the general population.
- Suicidal thoughts and attempts: SAMHSA, citing published studies, reports that 37% of fire and EMS professionals have contemplated suicide and 6.6% have reported an attempt, against 0.5% of civilians.
- Burnout: A national evaluation of EMS clinician burnout found high burnout prevalence in the personal (52%) and work-related (49%) domains.
- Fatalities: NFPA identified 83 firefighter fatalities in 2025, up from 69 in 2024, with heart attacks accounting for nearly all of the overexertion and strain deaths.
Sleep ties many of these outcomes together. Interrupted sleep shows up as a precursor to cancer, musculoskeletal injury, cardiovascular disease, and mental health problems, and it keeps the brain from completing the REM cycles that help process traumatic calls.
What happens when departments can see exposure and sleep data
Chief Hummel described a moment from our early conversations about this topic. He had thought about how often crews are woken at night, how often they go on SIDS calls or shootings, and how often they are exposed to carcinogens. The data to answer those questions already existed in his department. It had never occurred to him that his department held this information. The department simply was not packaging or using it.
Chief Hummel also described a cultural hurdle. Company staffing is a sacred cow in many departments, and an administrator who interrupts it picks a hard fight. Data gives leaders a way to share the research, the cause, and the effect with members, so they can see the picture for themselves.
Some Boise companies and ambulances receive five or six wake-ups in a night, and an engine turns around faster than an ambulance, so engine crews can get even less rest. Building a profile for each responder that combines wake-ups, exposure to toxins, and specific traumatic events would help a training and safety division spot who needs support. Mining that data by hand into a spreadsheet would take a large amount of staff time.
I raised a comparison from my own experience. Fire apparatus take years to build and cost millions of dollars, so departments polish them, track their oil changes, and adjust response plans to protect them. A frontline engine at Boise typically serves about 10 years, with up to 5 more in reserve. A responder serves 20 to 30 years.
Why don't we do that with our people?
Departments that treat people with the same data-driven care they give apparatus can extend careers and protect their health, which in turn allows the department to better serve its community.
The wellness report card: what to track and why context matters
Many organizations start with CAD data, because it is the easiest source to pull. CAD alone shows call types, and call types miss the story.
A "code blue baby" dispatch triggers the full adrenaline response, and most of the time the call turns out to be a baby choking while feeding. A fall dispatched as low acuity can turn into a cardiac arrest on arrival. The ePCR carries the clinical context that fills in the picture.
During the Q&A, I shared my screen and walked through the Peregrine wellness report card using a demo data set modeled on real deployments. The report card combines CAD, ePCR, and staffing data in one view to identify paramedics, EMTs, and firefighters with elevated risk factors. It tracks:
- Critical and traumatic calls: Call types carry weighted points, adjusted by the primary and secondary impressions and report narrative, with scoring that each department can customize.
- Exposure time: Time spent on traumatic scenes and at structure fires, where chemical exposure is a concern.
- Overtime and sick leave: Two of the earliest signs of burnout, since people work extra shifts and then get sick.
- Sleep disruption: Dispatches at night over the past 30 days, so leaders can see which crews are being woken most.
- Carcinogen exposure: Structure fires, vehicle fires, lithium-ion battery fires, and carbon monoxide and gas odor calls, with time on scene and role.
Bars show where each responder sits relative to peers, and a peer support member or chief can click into a call to see why it was flagged.
Peer support works better when everyone sees the same picture
Chief Hummel offered a lesson from Boise's peer support team that I have heard from other departments too. Well-intentioned peer support members were reaching out to colleagues after difficult calls, and some of those colleagues received four or five calls and grew annoyed. He suggested a dashboard that shows which metrics have changed, such as a rise in sick leave, and who is already checking in, so a captain, a battalion chief, and a peer supporter each know the others are involved.
A shared dashboard solves this. Leaders can see rising sick leave, forced overtime, and recent difficult calls, and they can also see who has already checked in. At Ada County Paramedics, we planned for each peer support member to hold a list of five to ten people they check on, so every responder has one point of contact. When a chief or peer supporter calls early with a simple "we heard you had a bad call, do you need anything," that call carries real weight.
Chief Hummel also described Boise's push to train its 75 captains on the signs of burnout. Historically, once an officer was promoted, ongoing education stopped, and the training is expensive because of the overtime it requires. He sees officers as the first line of defense, since burnout often shows up as a change in disposition, such as a short temper or a negative attitude.
How to build trust with labor and change the culture
Chief Hummel spent years on the union side as vice president and grievance chairman before moving into administration. He has found that labor buys into support programs when leadership explains the intent behind them. His approach is to name the problem openly, educate members, and share the research.
"We can all pretend that doesn't affect us because we respect the people that are composed, but at the end of the day, it does affect us and here's what the peer-reviewed journals are saying, and here's the tools that we're using to try to lean into wellness. I do believe that the union will come with us on this if we provide the why."
Chief Aaron Hummel, Boise Fire Department
After 31 years, he has found that labor supports efforts that come with a coherent reason. He described a strong relationship with Local 149 and framed wellness data as an awareness effort that serves members. Educating on the research, sharing the tools in use, and calling out the facts gives members the context to choose a break from the busiest companies voluntarily.
I added that wellness programs lose support when members read them as punitive. A move off a favorite station can feel like punishment, and the same move framed as a reset grounded in sleep research lands differently. Explaining the why, educating members on it, and being radically transparent about the data behind a program builds the trust that culture change depends on.
When an attendee asked how to get personnel to use wellness resources without worrying about stigma or career impact, Chief Hummel pointed to culture: making it normal to talk about it, and making education part of the job from hire through retirement.
Policy changes that give crews their sleep back
Chief Hummel raised a policy lever that applies in every region: non-emergent calls from care facilities. Some independent living and long-term care facilities staff one night watch person and rely on 911 for lift assists. Crews can run to three facilities in a night. He said it is not right for crews to lose a night of sleep handling something two people on duty could manage themselves, and he noted that this pattern shows up across the country. In his view, leaders should look at the full picture, since sleep lost to these calls weighs on emotional, mental, and physical wellness just as traumatic calls do.
Boise has pursued education with these facilities and the State Bureau of EMS, and Chief Hummel's next step is a city ordinance with financial consequences for non-emergent calls. He reports early progress from the education work has started to fade as facility leadership turns over. I pointed to mobile integrated healthcare, nurse triage lines, and dispatch center triage as related ways to reduce call volume. When I started, a pink sheet had eight lines, and eight calls meant a slammed shift. Many units now run 12 to 15 calls in a day.
How to measure whether wellness interventions work
An attendee asked which metrics show that a burnout intervention is working. Chief Hummel suggested pairing the report card with an anonymous pulse survey on personal wellness, since Boise already runs an annual anonymous department survey that has exposed blind spots. Comparing survey responses with wake-ups, call exposure, and sick leave shows whether the numbers match how people feel. When I asked him where he would send an analyst first, he pointed to sick leave utilization and how often a member has been forced back to work.
My answer was to track the signals that already exist: sick calls, overtime, general attitude, performance evaluations, and clinical indicators like patient complaints. Another attendee asked how to avoid collecting statistics without acting on them. I pointed to the heart of quality improvement. True quality improvement means making one small change, tracking whether it worked, and then making the next change.
Chief Hummel's lift assist policy is a good example. One change, tracked against sleep and call data, shows whether crews are getting rest.
Wellness from hire to retire and beyond
When I asked about the legacy he wants to leave, Chief Hummel described a collective effort between membership, management, and the union.
"I really want to operationalize a process by which it's a collective journey between the membership, the management, the union, and we take care of our people beyond and in the retirement."
Chief Aaron Hummel, Boise Fire Department
Since becoming chief, he has invited retirees to department events and included them in his monthly video updates, so they stay connected to their department after retirement. Boise Fire and Boise Police have also hosted retreats through Boulder Crest's Struggle Well program. Chief Hummel noted that more options now exist than when he started. He closed by acknowledging that many listeners have lost responders on and off duty. People often picture a line-of-duty death as a structure collapse or a highway strike, and Boise has also lost members to the stresses of the job. He said he supports anything that strengthens employee wellness.
You can start with the data you already have
The most useful point from the hour is that no department has to build a perfect program before starting. Pick one signal, such as sleep disruption, overtime, or exposure to high-severity calls. Connect it to a second source for context, share the why with your members and union, and review the trend on a regular schedule.
Watch the full webinar and see the wellness report card in action.
Hear Chief Aaron Hummel and Peder Humlen walk through the data, the policy levers, and a live demo of the wellness report card. Watch the recording. Ready to see it with your own data? Book a demo.
How Peregrine supports fire and EMS wellness
Peregrine connects the systems a fire-rescue or EMS department already runs, including CAD, RMS, ePCR, staffing, and training records, into one operational picture. For personnel wellness, that means:
- A wellness report card: Workload, exposure, sleep disruption, overtime, and sick leave appear in a single view, with scoring each department can customize.
- Context from clinical records: ePCR impressions and narratives sit beside CAD dispatch data so call severity reflects what happened on scene.
- Exposure history: Calls tied to carcinogen exposure are cataloged by responder, supporting early health screening and workers' compensation documentation.
- Peer support coordination: Leaders and peer support members see check-in activity and early warning trends in one place.
Peregrine built its platform in the law enforcement space and expanded it to fire, EMS, and emergency management, where the mission centers on protecting people and keeping responders healthy. More than 500 public agencies across fire-rescue, emergency management, and law enforcement already trust Peregrine with their operational data.
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