OGDEN — Ogden Fire Chief Mike Slater has noted that the Ogden City Fire Department is on course to potentially be fully-staffed for one of the few times in his career in the next few months.

“We’ve only been fully staffed twice in my career,” he said. “We’re close and keep our fingers crossed within the next couple of months we’ll be fully staffed.”

Slater said one of the reasons for the department being so close to fully-staffed is because  it has a supportive city.

“We have a city that supports public safety, which is big,” he said. “We have leaders in our organization that support the men and women of Ogden Fire and we’re busy.”

But he said a lot of it has to do with the culture that has been built up over several years under him and his predecessor, Mike Mathieu, who retired from the position in July 2025.

“Ogden City is not for everybody,” he said. “Ogden fire is not for everybody. We call them, ‘dogs,’ I know the mayor calls them, horses.’ — and not in a derogatory manner. It’s the fact that you have to want to work, you have to want to be busy and if you want to be the best firefighter, the best paramedic and the best EMT, come to Ogden because our call volume is there. We’re not in competition with anybody else. We’re in competition with ourselves, but we’re going to raise our bar and we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to that standard. If you want to be the best, this is where you come.”

Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski said the fire department is a place for people to truly challenge themselves.

“What we’re saying is if you want to be the best, you have to drive and challenge yourself and push through the struggle of hard things,” he said. “We’re not going to take advantage of that, we’re going to create an environment where you get to be challenged. You have to have a dogged mindset and determination, and you have to have the ethic of a workhorse to carry a load. It applies to us in life and it applies to us at work — we want to help people become stronger to carry the load. We don’t want to just give people a heavier load, we want to help them strengthen their backs to carry it.”

However, there is a reality that comes before any group of first responders, regardless of the level of training they’ve received, work ethic or which animals are used to personify them.

“We see the worst of the worst,” Slater said. “The society that most people don’t see, we see. But we also see some of the best, some of the great outcomes and some of the great things.”

He said that the department has evolved immensely to help take care of the mental needs of those who serve.

“Through the support of our city and Rep. (Ryan) Wilcox was huge in this — he passed a bill that requires you to have a mental health program within your organization for police and for fire,” Slater said. “We went above and beyond. We went out — I was Deputy Chief at the time — and sought out a grant. We have our own counselor. He works independently, but he covers the police and fire department. They meet with him yearly — it’s a requirement that our members meet with our therapist yearly — and if they have to meet with him more often, they do.”

Slater said the addition of a counselor has been huge for the department, and is one of many tools they utilize.

“We’ve seen an increase in mental wellbeing because of that program,” he said. “We also have a peer support team of members inside of our department that are trained. We have a dog that comes around the station who’s a peer support dog. It’s amazing — when he comes in the room, everyone wants to pet him and their mood just changes.”

Nadolski said this comes at a time when many are losing sight of the humanity of others.

“In cities across the country, including our city, we’ve been conditioned and we’re losing sight of one another and we’re losing sight of our humanity,” he said. “There’s a lot of reasons for that, but it starts to pit public servants against the public and we try really hard to make sure we’re available and engaged and connected, emotionally and spiritually, and just present for people when they need it the most in that moment and every time in between.”

He said that culture building within the fire department and beyond will never come at the expense of humanity.

“We talked a lot about culture and work load, mentality, grit, determination and drive,” he said. “We are not going to take advantage of that. It’s our responsibility to nurture an environment that is mindful of that load so it doesn’t go too far, and that is a matter of making sure we do everything we can to reduce call volume — which we try to do through preventative and community health measures — and make sure that we have staffing where we need it. … That also means providing resources for mental health, because that workload can get to them.”