Emergency officials reiterated that technical rescue teams remain fully trained to extract patients using traditional ground methods and alternative flight maneuvers.
"All of our rescue technicians are trained in multiple avenues and multiple ways of rescuing people off these mountains," Captain Lee said.
"The helicopter is just one of our tools in our toolbox."
While the city's main hoist resource is grounded, emergency managers urged the public to stay off mountain trails during extreme temperature advisories.
"Whenever we go on these mountain rescues, depending on where the patient is at, the status, their location, things like that, we have different plans in place to rescue these personnel or these hikers," Lee said.
"Whatever is the fastest, most effective way to get them off, that's what we're gonna do."
Fire authorities cautioned hikers that high ambient temperatures make outdoor exertion exceptionally hazardous. They urged hikers to exercise early in the day or seek indoor facilities.
"When it's over 100 degrees, stay off the mountains, find a different way to get your exercise in," he said.
Recent Rescue and Operational Adjustments
Before being taken offline for service, the Firebird crew successfully executed a technical hoist extraction of an injured individual from Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley.
"I was being lifted up [in the helicopter], and I was looking at all the areas that I used to climb around as a kid.
And I thought, Lord, thank you.
This was just a real blessing to have that crew," Glen Keane, Animator, told Arizona's Family just after the rescue.
