SEQUIM — From responding to car wrecks to basic life support calls, Clallam County Fire District 3 had its busiest call load in its history last year.
Firefighters and medics responded to a record 9,189 calls in 2024, although 157 were common dispatching errors for various reasons, staff report.
“We’ve seen substantial growth and we anticipate even more,” Battalion Chief Chris Turner said of Sequim’s population.
“We’re looking at and watching the construction in (the city of Sequim and Clallam County) and trying to extrapolate what it’s going to cause for the district as a whole.”
Fire District 3 covers 142-square miles from east of Deer Park in the west to Gardiner in the east and everywhere in between, including Agnew, Blyn, Carlsborg, Diamond Point, Dungeness, Lost Mountain and Sequim.
Emergency calls went up in the district’s coverage area by more than 500 from 2023 (8,531 minus 122 call errors).
Turner said more than 80 percent of last year’s calls (7,599) were for emergency medical services (EMS), also up from 2023 (7,146).
Those calls can range from a request for pickup after a fall to medical emergencies requiring transport by ambulance or air to a hospital.
Fire Chief Justin Grider said the 2024 total reaffirms what crews have been saying through the year.
“We have way more medical calls than in the past, and now there’s numbers to show that,” he said.
Along with medical calls, Fire District 3 (FD3) responded to more car wrecks — 183 in 2024 compared with 132 in 2023 — and alarm activations — 217 in 2024 compared with 191 in 2023.
Alarms can include Life Alert systems being activated, and it’s not uncommon for someone to accidentally call 911 through their smartphones, Turner said.
“It’s where technology is going. It’s embedded in phones,” he said.
“It’s also an increase in our crews being out of position if the reported incident turns out to be nothing.”
Staffing, support
FD3 added several new firefighters last year to bring staffing to a new high of 50 firefighters/paramedics/emergency medical technicians, including three battalion chiefs and two staffers on day shift.
Mark Karjalainen started Sept. 1 as the district’s first Community Paramedic to help alleviate some of the less severe calls. In four months, it’s estimated he absorbed 118 calls.
Karjalainen interacts with frequent 911 callers to better help connect them with the services they need.
Another new opportunity for FD3 includes an updated partnership with Clallam Fire District 2.
When there’s a structure fire from Deer Park to Carlsborg, Clallam County’s 911 service, Peninsula Communications (Pencom), will automatically dispatch a fire engine from FD2 to support.
Previously, FD3 staff would have to request mutual aid for a fire in that area.
“Those kinds of agreements are force multipliers as we all realize resources are limited,” Turner said.
“Those calls are infrequent, but they increase safety when there’s a fire.”
FD3 also maintains a mutual aid agreement with East Jefferson Fire Rescue for fires in eastern Clallam County.
Port Angeles
Seeing an increased demand on services is not exclusive to Sequim, Turner said.
Port Angeles Fire Department (PAFD) saw an increase of 250-plus calls in 2024 to become its all-time high (6,043 in 2024 from 5,789 in 2023), according to Fire Chief Derrell Sharp.
The department has seen an average 5.09 percent annual increase for calls for two decades, he said, and they’ll likely continue to see an increase this year with more visitors to the Olympic National Park, an aging population, the continued opioid crisis and many other factors.
Their 2024 numbers also included a “significant increase” of patient transports to Olympic Medical Center, Sharp said, so the Port Angeles City Council approved the department adding a medical unit — an ambulance and two full-time medics — to work during peak call times of 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays.
“It’s huge to have that,” Sharp said. “We’re in process of hiring staff to fill that.”
PAFD also employs two full-time community paramedics, and it just hired two temporary EMTs via a grant to help cut down on call loads. Crews are referring the paramedics and now EMTs to recurrent patients from calls sooner that may benefit from referrals, Sharp said.
They determine if there is a medical and/or social services need and try to connect the person with services in the city.
Sharp also said they were approved by the state Department of Health in February 2023 to start a Post Overdose Response Unit and administer buprenorphine to help alleviate withdrawal symptoms after an overdose.
He said they found only 40 percent of overdose patients were accepting transport to OMC for treatment, but with the new medical unit, that number went up to 70 percent in 2024.
“They’d work with patients, provide a warm handoff with partner agencies … and with that connection, it was like somebody flipped a switch,” Sharp said. “Seventy percent started wanting transport.”
For Clallam Fire Rescue 2, Fire Chief Jake Patterson said they’ve seen their highest call loads the last two years – 1,994 calls in 2023, the highest reported, and 1,915 in 2024, the second highest in its history.
He said the decrease last year could be a fluctuation of various circumstances, but the demand remains high.
“In the last 12 years, we’ve seen a 100 percent increase,” Patterson said.
Education
In Sequim, FD3 has invested a lot of resources into its Community Risk Reduction, such as through the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) program.
“There are more than 500 community members in the program, which is a force multiplier if a major disaster were to occur,” Turner said. “People who go out and seek that training become inherently less risky than someone without that skill set.”
FD3 also brought back its fire safety inspector position (John McKenzie), and PAFD just hired a similar position.
“We’re educating people, and it’s why we’re seeing less fires,” Grider said. “People are taking the next steps to be FireWise.”
He said it dates back to “Stop, Drop and Roll” being introduced in schools and children planning their escape routes in case of a fire.
“As adults, we tend to forget that stuff, so we can take that same principle and apply it to the medical world, (i.e.) if you pick up all these throw rugs, you’d have less falls, or install some guardrails,” Grider said.
FD3 taught more than 200 people how to use fire extinguishers in 2024, and it continues to reinforce the phrase “Close before you Doze,” meaning closing your bedroom doors at night will protect lives during a fire.
“If you have your door open, you will not survive the carbon monoxide,” he said. “With the heat, it’s so full of plastics, everything in there is fuel, and now you seriously have three minutes to get out.”
Crews also continue to work with businesses on prevention, doing pre-incident planning so they can familiarize themselves with building layouts for emergencies.
Turner said during a recent session that firefighters incidentally found a building’s fire sprinklers had been turned off accidentally.
“To me, that’s the epitome of community risk reduction,” he said. “It’s a huge win for the business and community.”
Grider said those pre-incident planning sessions aren’t only to do inspections but to better connect with business owners, too.
If an alarm goes off at 2 p.m. or 2 a.m., Grider said if they have the right contact information, they can connect with an owner and request them to unlock the door rather than having firefighters break down the door.
Future
With hundreds of homes planned in Sequim in the next few years, Grider said they do their best to monitor building permits “not to be nosy but to anticipate the next five years while pre-planning for our community.”
He said they have a good idea of where future fire stations must go, but call statistics and future growth of items, including homes, roundabouts and even speed bumps, help them be more efficient with response plans.
He said finding a spot for a station along U.S. Highway 101 will be key for the city of Sequim as Station 34 on Fifth Avenue is the busiest station, but it can be hard to navigate traffic to calls depending on the time of day.
“It still serves a great purpose, and it’s a great location,” he said. “We’re constantly evaluating where to put resources.”
Grider said they’ll need to continue adding more personnel too.
“The men and women who serve District 3 work very hard to provide services (and the high call load) puts an increased workload on their backs,” he said.
However, by adding more personnel, he said they would need to have places for them to operate.
District leaders have sold three properties to help offset costs to build a new Carlsborg fire station, which is still being planned. They continue to discuss plans to send a multi-year general levy lid lift to voters on Aug. 5, and to run an EMS levy lid lift renewal sometime in 2026.
For more about Clallam County Fire District 3, visit ccfd3.org.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
