East County Fire and Rescue: State of the District 2025

By Joshua Seeds

Guest Columnist

2024 was a big year for change in East County Fire and Rescue District. The Board of Fire Commissioners placed a levy lid lift on the August ballot to ensure the district’s long-term financial viability and improve staffing. The citizens of the district said “yes” by a wide margin. We are grateful for your support and trust. We’ll strive to repay that trust with excellent service and sound management of your resources.

With the funds from the lid lift, we were able to change our staffing model, increasing part-time firefighter-emergency medical technician (EMT) positions to full-time positions with five firefighters on each of our three shifts. This allows us to reduce closures of Station 94 near Washougal while also reducing overtime costs. In addition, we are able to add a deputy chief position, for which we are currently recruiting. This will improve administration and training and ensure better command coverage during high-acuity events like house fires.

Our training program now includes grant-funded “Blue Card” incident command training and a robust volunteer program. If you wish to serve your community, consider volunteering. We will train you to become a firefighter and/or an EMT or a tender driver. The whole community will benefit.

District staff and the ECFR fire commission have been busy with strategic planning, including long-term financial and capital project plans. This planning allows us to schedule replacement of apparatus and equipment so we have a clear picture of how much money we will need and when. This way, we can save money to pay cash rather than borrow and waste money on interest. The fire district is debt-free and intends to stay that way. We reduced the apparatus fleet size to the minimum, selling the oldest vehicles. We have ordered a new engine and new tender to replace older, failure-prone apparatus.

Chief Ed Hartin retired after 50 years in the fire service. He was a transformative chief who put the district on a better financial footing and improved training and operations. He will be missed. We were lucky to hire Chief Steve Black from Forest Grove (Oregon) Fire and Rescue. Chief Black started in January and has proved very capable. We welcome him to our community and appreciate that he and his spouse uprooted their life in Forest Grove to join us.

As ever, our focus is on health and safety for our members and our residents. To reduce toxic exposures to our firefighters, we installed grant-funded diesel exhaust extraction systems in our stations to keep the apparatus bays cleaner. We also switched to firefighting foam and wildland/car accident safety gear without PFAS, fluorinated “forever chemicals,” to reduce another toxic substance exposure route. We received a third grant to fund a Community Risk Assessment, which will be done this year. This assessment will help us plan for risks from earthquakes and wildfires to traffic accidents and home locations. Last year we held community CPR sessions and will be holding CPR certification classes this year. If you want to be able to help your family and neighbors in the crucial minutes before help arrives, consider signing up. Watch our website for details.

Western Washington had a fairly easy fire season in 2024, but we must all remain careful as fire seasons get longer and more severe. Ensure your home has defensible space around it and burn yard debris during the wet season or chip it to keep the air clean. Your neighborhood or homeowners association could pursue Firewise certification. There was an extremely large house fire last July, so let’s all be careful with ignition sources when the fuel is dry. Make certain that we can get through your gate and up your driveway.

East County Fire and Rescue will continue to do our best with emergency response and prevention. However, we all have a responsibility to keep each other safe and healthy. By working together, we can keep East County Fire and Rescue District a beautiful and safe place to live. 

East County Fire and Rescue (ECFR) is the 60-square-mile fire district located north and outside of the cities of Camas and Washougal, serving over 10,000 citizens. Every year since 2015, ECFR’s board chair has submitted this column as a special outreach to our citizens, as well as those in the areas we provide mutual aid, including Camas, Washougal, Skamania County and Vancouver. Joshua Seeds, the 2024 ECFR board chair, wrote this year’s column.