Fire district measure would provide EMS funds

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 28, 2026

PORT ANGELES — Medical emergencies make up nearly 70 percent of calls in Clallam County Fire District 2.

Fires account for less than 4 percent.

Yet the district has never had a dedicated source of money to pay for EMS services. Fire Chief Jake Patterson says that has to change.

Patterson made the case for Proposition 1, an EMS levy on the Aug. 4 primary ballot, during a presentation to the Nor’Wester Rotary on Friday. The measure would levy 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value for 10 years.

For a home assessed at about $600,000, the levy would cost roughly $300 a year, Patterson said.

Patterson said it would raise about $1.2 million a year dedicated solely to the emergency medical services that consume most the district’s resources.

Unlike the district’s fire levy, which slowly declines in rate but never disappears, the 10-year EMS levy would vanish entirely if voters don’t vote to renew it, Patterson said.

Since it began providing advanced life support care in 2012, the fire district has paid for EMS services out of its regular levy — money Patterson said is increasingly pulled away from long-term needs on the firefighting side, such as replacing aging vehicles and equipment.

Fire District 2 covers 85 square miles and an estimated 9,800 residents from Deer Park to Lake Sutherland, wrapping around the city of Port Angeles, which runs its own fire department. The district runs four stations with 13 full-time staff — including nine on operational shifts — and about 32 volunteers.

Beyond fire and EMS coverage, it covers parts of Olympic National Park and provides wildland firefighting and technical rope and swift-water rescues.

Fires, Patterson noted, remain central to the district’s work.

“We prepare for it a lot, but EMS is what we do,” he said.

Under state law, EMS levy money is restricted and can be spent only on emergency medical services. Regular fire levy money, by contrast, is unrestricted — which is why the district has been able to shift it to cover rising emergency medical calls.

“We’ve been using our fire levy to fund our EMS services,” Patterson said.

The district responded to 2,094 calls in 2025, its highest total ever and the first time it has topped 2,000, Patterson said.

Call volume is up 42 percent over the past decade and roughly 108 percent since 2011.

Of last year’s calls, 68 percent were for EMS, 24 percent were “good intent” calls — reports of an apparent emergency that turns out not to be one, such as smoke that proves to be steam, 4 percent were false alarms and 4 percent were fires.

As calls climb, they increasingly overlap. About 32 percent of the time, a new emergency comes in while crews are committed to another, Patterson said.

Fire District 2 began staffing a second response unit in May through a new part-time program. Before that, only one unit was staffed by career firefighters, and the district leaned on volunteers and on Olympic Ambulance, its longtime private partner.

But Patterson said Olympic Ambulance also is stretched thin — roughly 45 percent of the time it has no unit available in the district.

Patterson said the levy would allow the district to hire enough firefighter-paramedics and firefighter-EMTs to staff two response units around the clock, giving the geographically spread-out district dedicated coverage on its west side.

It also would fund EMS supplies and equipment and build a capital fund to replace big-ticket items such as ambulances and cardiac monitors.

Importantly, it would let the district stop sending residents ambulance bills; instead, it would bill a patient’s insurance and write off whatever the insurer does not cover, ending out-of-pocket balance charges for residents.

Patterson acknowledged that a levy is a hard sell at the moment.

“Right now, it’s not a good time to ask people to raise their taxes, but it usually never is a good time,” he said.

The measure faces a high bar.

As a new EMS levy, it needs a supermajority — at least 60 percent “yes” votes — and it also must be validated, meaning turnout must reach 40 percent of the last general election.

Patterson said fire commissioners chose the August ballot rather than waiting for this fall because the heavy turnout expected this November would raise that bar for any later vote.

No matter what voters decide, District 2 will continue to show up, Patterson said.

“You call us, we’re going to come,” he said.

“We’ll figure out the stuff later.”

EMS levy

Clallam County Fire District 2 is proposing a 10-year EMS levy on the Aug. 4 primary ballot. It would cost $0.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value for those who live within district boundaries.

If it passes with a 60 percent supermajority, the levy would generate about $1.2 million to support EMS services.

Cost to homeowners:

$300,000 home — $150 a year/$12.50 per month

$400,000 home — $200 a year/$16.66 per month

$500,000 home — $250 a year/$20.83 per month

$600,000 home — $300 a year/$25.00 per month

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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.