PORT ANGELES — Clallam Two Fire Rescue hopes to begin staffing its west-side fire station around the clock by early October as the district deals with a growing number of emergency calls.
Fire Chief Jake Patterson says a modular home has been delivered to Station 22 in Dry Creek and is now being installed next to the station.
The three-bedroom, two-bath home will provide living quarters for firefighters, allowing the district to keep a crew at the station overnight and on weekends.
Patterson says the district has already been staffing Station 22 during peak weekday hours, but increasing demand is making around-the-clock coverage more important.
“But now, as demand keeps growing over the weekends and in the evenings, we need to make sure that there’s crews out there that are going to be there day in and day out. So as a solution, we’ve just had a modular home being installed out there,” said Patterson.
Patterson says the goal is to have a crew at Station 22 24 hours a day, seven days a week by the end of September or beginning of October.
The district says its emergency call volume has more than doubled since it hired its first full-time firefighters in 2012. Patterson says the district handled just under 2,100 calls last year, compared with fewer than 1,000 in 2012.
He says overlapping emergencies are also becoming increasingly common, with another emergency already underway 32 percent of the time when a new call comes in.
Patterson says the modular home is a temporary solution. The district’s longer-term plan calls for replacing its aging primary fire stations with facilities designed for full-time staffing.