Fire and other emergency service crews across the region experienced a drastic change in response time, operations and call volume during winter weather events this year.
Jason Leavitt, a Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue (CCFR) battalion chief, provided insight on his district’s winter experience. The Jan. 17 snow and ice storm included a strategic rescue for a man needing dialysis and an out-of-district response for a garage fire. The most recent snow at higher elevations in the district, along with heavy rains, have not caused problems compared with the past, Leavitt said.
A response for a man who missed a week’s worth of dialysis due to the storm turned into a technical rescue for fire and EMS staff. After arriving at Roger Schmeusser’s driveway entrance, CCFR quickly realized fire engines and an ambulance could not make it up the driveway. A four-wheel drive pickup truck operated by CCFR eventually reached the house, however.
“We took our tech rescue rig up there, and they set up a rope system to essentially sled the guy down the hill to the waiting ambulance,” Leavitt said. “So it took quite a period of time. I think they were on that call right around two hours.”
Leavitt said staff explored multiple transport options, including Leavitt, himself, driving Schmeusser to the dialysis appointment because ambulances around the county were backlogged with calls.
“The ambulances that day were so backed up on calls in the queue that we didn’t know if we were going to get an ambulance for him for a couple of hours,” Leavitt said.
During the time it took to rescue Schmeusser for his dialysis appointment, a working garage fire took place in the southern end of the fire district, but crews could not respond immediately as they were occupied responding to other calls.
“Because of just everybody else in the county being on calls, it severely delayed the amount of time to get that first engine there to get water on the fire,” Leavitt said. “Luckily it was a detached garage and the damage wasn’t terrible. But just to put it in perspective, the fire engine from downtown Vancouver was one of the engines on that call because of all the other rigs out on other calls.”
As well, the snowstorm prevented a woman from reaching the hospital, and firefighters had to step in to help.
“We had a baby born at one of our fire stations — the one in the city — and we had to wait quite some time for an ambulance to come to transport the baby,” CCFD3 Chief Scott Sorenson said.
Leavitt said a lot of prior problems from late winter heavy rains have been resolved in recent years, alleviating those concerns for fire staff.
“A lot of the old issues that we’ve had in our district have been fixed through updates to culvert systems [and] to the ditches being cleaned out,” Leavitt said. “I can’t think of any flooding calls or issues with houses that we’ve typically had in the past.”
