A brand new station for North Country EMS in Fargher Lake is better serving staff and the small community as a focal point along state Route 503.
For over 20 years, North Country EMS staff resided in a double-wide manufactured home and housed their units in a carport for Station 52 in Fargher Lake. The public ambulance company received grant funding from Clark County commissioners to the tune of $250,000, an America Rescue Plan Act grant of $2.75 million, and the rest of the over-$6 million station was provided from North Country EMS’s capital funds.
Construction on the much improved Station 52 began in November 2022 with crews moving into the station in December 2023.
Station 52’s manufactured home was originally purchased from the City of Camas after it utilized the space while one of its fire stations was being built, North Country EMS Chief Bryce Shirley said.
“Our director at that time was able to get that from them and planted it out here, and they lived in that ever since and responded out of that,” Shirley said. “And so, of course, those things don’t last forever. … So the community didn’t pay any direct tax money in terms of like, ‘OK, now you have a bond you have to pay for over the next however many years.’ It was paid for through grants and capital money that we had for a long time.”
The staffing remains the same, but officials are thinking of expanding in the future. The new building doesn’t directly enhance or change service to the area of northern Clark County, but it serves as a beacon of subtle modernization for Fargher Lake.
“This building is a community focus and center point, and it’s a community building,” Shirley said. “The community can be proud of what they have sitting here, and it’s going to be here for a long time.”
North Country EMS, headquartered in Yacolt, serves over 1,000 square miles encompassing northern Clark County and parts of Cowlitz and Skamania counties. The ambulance company is funded through taxpayer money, upward of just $0.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value, an entire dollar short of what EMS levies can achieve. While funded through property taxes in regular and excess levies, another funding mechanism is through transport bills, but with a twist for EMS district residents.
“We take people to the hospital, obviously. We transport and bill for transport services for the individuals to the individuals’ insurance, but, if they’re a resident of the service area and they already pay for North Country through their property taxes, we don’t pass on the extra cost,” Shirley said. “So, for example, if you lived here and we took you to the hospital and the bill was $2,700, we would bill your insurance company and any remainder that was left over that they didn’t pay, we would write off because you’re obviously making up the rest through your property taxes. So the community obviously wants to have that service here, and it’s pretty important and they continue to pass levies with pretty high support.”
North Country EMS is currently going out for its regular excess levy currently, which Shirley said is not new. It happens every three to four years.
“The result of that is probably going to equate to increased staffing,” Shirley said of the excess levy. “We haven’t increased our staffing. I’ve worked for North Country now for 14 years, and we haven’t added staffing. And so I think we’re at a point where we’re probably going to have to do that in the next year or two. North Clark County is growing, the community is growing, the demand for service is growing, and so you have to respond, and so we’re evaluating when that’s going to happen, but I imagine it’s probably sometime in 2025 [that] we will probably add more staffing and another ambulance.”
To learn more about North Country EMS, visit northcountryems.org.
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