Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue (CCFR) received nearly $950,000 from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe Foundation to fund two brand new ambulances as the need continues to grow throughout the county.
On Wednesday, May 1, CCFR invited community members to a push-in ceremony at Station 21 in Ridgefield to commemorate the ambulance unit. The push-in ceremony is a fire service tradition dating back to the late 1800s when fire departments used hand-drawn pumpers and horse-drawn equipment. Upon returning to the station after a fire call, the horses could not easily back the equipment into the station, so they were disconnected from the fire cart, and firefighters would push the equipment back into the bay themselves.
The first ambulance unit will initially respond as “Rescue 21” and provide first response to medical emergencies and fire-related incidents in the CCFR district. The new ambulance will be staffed by a firefighter/EMT and a firefighter/paramedic. In January 2025, and as part of the new regional ambulance contract, “Rescue-21” will become “Medic-21” and function as a transport ambulance for high priority patients in the CCFR fire district.
CCFR is a part of EMS District 2, which “piggybacks” off the contract American Medical Response (AMR) has with the City of Vancouver, CCFR Chief John Nohr said.
Since the pandemic, AMR has experienced struggles fully serving the county and often can be heard on scanners operating at a level 0 — no ambulances available.
“They started missing calls and being at what we call level 0, meaning there is not an ambulance available, and that creates an issue for us because now, our first responders are waiting,” Nohr said. “Some of those pa tients are critical. They need to go to the hospital for their definitive treatment, but even the ones that aren’t critical, once we’ve made patient contact, we cannot legally leave them and say, ‘Well, the ambulance is coming and we don’t need to be here.’ We have to stay with them until an ambulance arrives. That’s continuity of care.”
Having two ambulances available for transport, mainly for priority one and two calls — from cardiac arrest traumatic injuries — will allow CCFR to be available for the next call-to-service, as well as move the patients to where they have to be — the hospital.
When ambulance service is at a level 0, not only are patients waiting on an ambulance, fire crews could be delayed in arriving, as well.
“So that’s been our concern,” Nohr said. “The response times and the number of level 0’s have decreased, [and] their percentage of being on time is getting better, but it’s still a concern to us.”
In 2023, CCFR responded to roughly 1,300 priority one and two medical calls, Nohr said.
“So that’s 1,300 transports that we will do because from here we can hit all the areas in our district quickly. … So, we have a growing population, but we weren’t going to be getting the ambulances any quicker,” Nohr said. “And so I really appreciate the opportunity to work with whoever the next provider is through that contract and to work with that provider to be able to respond to the highest needs patients here.”
Also at the ceremony, Cowlitz Indian Tribe Chairwoman Patty Kinswa-Gaiser presented CCFR with a check that is equivalent to the ilani Casino and Resort’s property taxes that everybody else in the district pays, Nohr said at the ceremony. In previous years, the impact fee for the ilani Casino and Resort was roughly $346,000, but the impact fee saw a 32% increase to around $455,000. Prior to the hotel opening at ilani, CCFR responded to 68 calls in the first five months of 2024. Nohr said they have responded to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe 130 times.
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