Fire districts on the North Coast near breaking point

Mar. 27—Fire districts on the North Coast have scrambled to keep up as increasing call volume and demands for services push emergency response to the breaking point.

Despite differences in resources, budgets, staffing levels and ranges of duties, fire chiefs pointed to one vital need — volunteers.

At their request, nine of the 11 fire chiefs in Clatsop County sat down with The Astorian at Warrenton City Hall in March to discuss the challenges and the future of firefighting.

Fire districts in the United States have long relied on volunteers to help sustain operations. According to the National Volunteer Fire Council, over 65% of firefighters are volunteers.

While the coronavirus pandemic influenced volunteer turnout, fire departments have dealt with a drop in volunteers for much longer. Since 1984, the overall number of volunteer firefighters has declined by more than 200,000, according to the fire council.

Fire chiefs on the North Coast cited several reasons why volunteering has fallen — the lack of housing options, enhanced training requirements, a shift in culture, frivolous calls and more.

"I don't have any rentals anymore in my district and the cost of rent has more than doubled," said Jeff Golightly, the fire chief at Lewis and Clark. "A young person that wants to work here, they can't afford to live here, so they have to move out."

Many of the fire chiefs recalled when volunteering at a fire district was more like a social event due to lower call volume and fewer barriers to get involved. Now, they said, it's become more like a second job.

"It's professionalized and we all do the same stuff," said Dan Crutchfield, the fire chief in Astoria. "So now we bring volunteers in and you spend three months teaching them about stuff — they'd rather be out pulling hoses and doing the real deal, but we have to do these other things with them and it's not as much fun for them."

With numerous training courses required for volunteers, fire districts often struggle to keep prospects interested and engaged. Many of the active volunteers, meanwhile, are older and close to stepping away.

Fire chiefs hope to see more incentives for volunteering added at the statewide level.

"We're at a critical point," said Marc Reckmann, the fire chief in Cannon Beach. "When I took this job ... I didn't think we'd be where we are today. I never saw this coming."

Call volume

While calls used to slow down on the North Coast during the months with less tourism, fire chiefs said the volume has picked up as more visitors come to the region year-round. Reckmann said March will likely have the most calls his fire district in Cannon Beach has ever had in a month.

Call volume has doubled, tripled or sometimes even more dramatically increased at fire districts within the past decade.

Part of the increase is tied to a change in responsibilities. The roles of fire districts have expanded to include medical calls, rescues and more.

Some fire chiefs also pointed to a rise of frivolous calls.

Calls with nonemergency requests, often received in the middle of the night, have driven volunteers away, said Matt Verley, the fire chief in Hamlet and a volunteer himself.

While some fire chiefs have seen drug-related calls ramp up, Kurt Donaldson, the fire chief in Knappa, described more calls tied to a general lack of health care.

The jump in call volume has placed more demand on the schedules of volunteers, who typically have jobs.

"The answer I get is pretty universal — 'I don't have that kind of time. I can't set aside 20 hours of my week every week with no compensation,'" Verley said of attempting to recruit volunteers.

In surveying his volunteers on why they would not want to respond to a call, Brian Alsbury, the fire chief in Warrenton, said the unpredictability of how long a call — specifically a medical call — will take was the most common answer.

When a fire engulfed a building at High Life Adventures in Warrenton earlier this month, nine of the 11 fire districts in the county jumped into action.

While some sent a fire apparatus to the scene of the early morning blaze, others shifted to cover for other departments.

"That's the nature of firefighting in Clatsop County now," Donaldson said.

Fire districts have been forced to work together and provide mutual aid more than ever, even for minor fires and incidents.

"With that call volume going up, we're relying on those volunteers to come in and help cover the city and go on additional calls, and that's been problematic for us, so we've had to rely on our neighbors more," Crutchfield said. "That's one thing about this group ... I don't think there's anything we wouldn't do for anybody else in this room if we can help them out."

The situation has left fire chiefs weighing the possibility of merging fire districts or even forming a countywide fire department.

While merging districts would not change much operationally, it could allow for an increased tax rate and the addition of more career staff.

"It's great for our relationship in the county that we all help each other, but we can only do so much," Alsbury said.

'Breaking point'

Joey Daniels, the fire chief in Seaside, said the challenges go beyond the need for more volunteers.

"At the end of the day, the communities have gotten bigger and honestly we've outgrown (the need for) volunteers," Daniels said. "We love our volunteers. We're never going to not want our volunteers, for sure. But there has to a happy medium in communities with career staff."

For fire districts, which rely on low tax rates, limited city budgets and levies for financing, the prospect of hiring more staff is often not promising.

Fire chiefs said the situation has taken a toll on the mental health of staff and volunteers.

"I don't want to answer to anybody why we didn't help this person or save them because we weren't available," Alsbury said. "That's my biggest fear. It really is.

"We carry baggage on our back."

Several fire chiefs referred to the moment as a "breaking point."

"I think we're really close to where we could have two or three major fires, or major mass casualties or something that's happened, and one of them is not going to get what it needs," Verley said.

"Every single person in this room will absolutely give 100% to wherever they're asked to go to, but there's not enough of us and there's not enough of the volunteers to be able to manage major incidents.

"With the increased traffic to the coast, it's going to happen. It might be this year."