Though most Gresham residents are satisfied with their local fire department, according to a recent survey, leaders and firefighters in the broader East Multnomah County area know big changes are necessary to maintain and improve the service going forward.

After a year of often contentious discussions about those changes, the cities of Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village seem to be nearing a consensus on moving forward with a new, four-city fire district. Reaching that consensus has meant setting aside a sometimes fraught past, and all the cities agreeing for the first time that they need to work together.

“There’s nothing that east county can’t accomplish when we do it together,” Gresham Assistant City Manager Larry Morgan said at a City Council work session in August.

That sentence was likely music to the ears of officials in Troutdale, Wood Village and Fairview. These three cities — which together have a population less than one third of Gresham’s — had long felt excluded from discussions about the fire department that serves them.

“That’s been a frustration of ours, for at least for as long as I’ve been here, that we don’t have a voice and we didn’t feel heard,” Troutdale City Councilor Geoffrey Wunn told OPB.

Clackamas Fire steps in

Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village have contracted with the Gresham Fire Department since 1995. The department is owned and controlled by the city of Gresham. As a department of the city, Gresham Fire’s budget and major decisions are largely in the hands of the Gresham City Council, which has historically resisted ceding any amount of say over fire services to the other cities that receive its service.

As the cities’ most recent 10-year contract approached its end this summer, Gresham proposed a new contract to the three cities. The proposal would have cost a lot more money for the other cities.

After a back and forth of counter proposals in which Gresham and the three cities could not reach an agreement, Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village decided in the spring it was time to explore other options.

The cities looked south, where Clackamas Fire District currently serves Oregon City, Happy Valley, Milwaukie, Boring, Damascus, Eagle Creek, Oak Lodge and Sunnyside. That district has expanded its service in the Portland Metro area in recent years. The cities of Gladstone and Sandy, which have contracted with Clackamas Fire since 2022 and 2023 respectively, will vote later this year on whether to be annexed into the district.

Clackamas Fire shared a proposal with Troutdale, Wood Village and Fairview outlining the resources and services it believed it could offer smaller cities in Multnomah County.

The proposal prompted Gresham to re-approach the three cities with an offer to extend the current contract for one year. The cities signed onto the extension, buying all four communities more time to figure out what their fire service would look like in the future.

Rebuilding trust

After learning the three cities were considering leaving Gresham Fire for Clackamas Fire District, the union representing Gresham’s firefighters sprang into action. Leadership from Gresham Professional Firefighters Local 1062 began reaching out to all four cities. They also took to social media, sharing with the public why breaking up fire services in East County would leave the whole area less safe.

The union said the proposal from Clackamas Fire amounted to “an aggressive takeover, not a partnership.”

Gresham Fire lieutenant paramedic and union vice president Julie McAllister said the union’s efforts appear to be making a difference. While the future is still very uncertain, the four cities are at the very least now communicating with each other and with the firefighters.

“It was very insulated when this first started and the firefighters were left out of all the communications,” union president Kevin Larson added. “Since then, I think we’ve all realized that we’re all better in this together and that you need to have all the stakeholders as part of this communication on fire service.”

While pleased that communication has improved, the union wants to make sure those discussions lead to the best outcome.

From their perspective, the best solution is moving fire services out from under the city of Gresham and establishing an independent fire district or joining the nearby Multnomah County Fire District 10.

Unlike the Gresham Fire Department, which falls under control of the city, fire districts are their own independent entities. Funded by property taxes from residents within the district, fire districts are governed by a board of elected residents.

Along with the fire union, leaders in Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village favor the district model as well because it would allow them more say over their fire service.

In communications with its residents, the city of Wood Village has likened the current situation to “renting” fire services from Gresham Fire. As the renters, Wood Village is beholden to the whims of its landlord, the city of Gresham. Joining a fire district, according to the analogy, would make Wood Village more like a part-owner of that district’s fire services.

Faster service

The three cities have also stated that fire department response times in their communities are not as good as they are in Gresham. A recent study conducted on behalf of the three cities found that firefighters took 14 minutes to respond to 90% of calls in the three communities. While standards vary, somewhere between four and ten minutes is a goal for most departments, though factors like traffic, distance between fire stations, number of firefighters and call volume can all impact response times.

Though the Gresham firefighter union disputes the response times from the three cities study, the firefighters agree that response times in the area could be much better with an additional fire station.

Gresham Fire currently operates six stations. Only one, Station 75 in Troutdale, is located in the three cities. If a fire district is formed, the union and three cities hope to build a new station between Wood Village and Fairview.

Though the Gresham fire union is on board with the four cities moving to a fire district, it is particularly opposed to the proposal from the Clackamas Fire District.

Splitting up fire services in East County between the current providers and Clackamas Fire would only result in longer response times and less local control, the union said. Calls to dispatch in the region are currently routed to Portland operators, and those operators do not have a direct line to Clackamas Fire. That would add seconds of delay to emergency calls, McAllister said.

While Clackamas Fire asserts it would provide an overall better level of service than the cities currently receive, the Gresham union said Clackamas Fire is not painting a complete picture.

Clackamas Fire proposed having one or two fire engines with three or four firefighters each in the three cities’ area, but the cities would have to pay for a new fire station. The proposal also mentioned utilizing Troutdale Station 75 if they took over control.

McAllister pointed out that one engine is not sufficient for that many calls and often even two isn’t enough. The next closest Clackamas Fire engine would be in Boring, Damascus or Happy Valley. She also pointed out that Clackamas Fire’s own firefighter union is opposed to the plan as the lack of backup would put both patients and firefighters at risk.

A letter from the Professional Firefighters Association of Clackamas County Local 1159 to leaders of the three cities, notes multiple concerns with Clackamas Fire’s offer, particularly with the speed at which the proposal was made.

“The accelerated timeline of this proposal has not allowed for a thorough evaluation of critical operational issues — such as the future of Station 75, adequate staffing, fire response models and mutual aid agreements,” the letter read.

According to the Gresham union, most house fires require 15 firefighters for an adequate response and apartment fires typically require 28.

“We need fire attack. We need multiple hose lines, you need hydrants taken, you need ladders thrown, you need rescue people,” McAllister said. “All of those things have to happen on fire calls. All of those things happen in a very short amount of time. You need multiple rigs there to do that.”

There are several other practical logistics that don’t currently align between Multnomah and Clackamas counties, such as paramedic training protocols and dispatch services, McAllister added.

For its part, Clackamas Fire is still willing to work with Troutdale, Wood Village and Fairview, but has decided to wait for the cities to make a decision.

“The cities are going through a complex and critical process, and it is going to take them some time,” Clackamas Fire Chief Information Officer Chris Edmonds said.

Paying for a new district

Funding is another key draw for establishing a new district, Larson explained.

As a department within the city, Gresham Fire’s revenue is currently hamstrung by Gresham’s tax rate, which was frozen in 1996 by a pair of measures passed by Oregon voters.

Gresham has a tax rate of $3.65 per $1,000 assessed value, but revenue from those taxes are split across the entire city government, covering police, parks, fire and other services.

Multnomah County Fire District 10’s rate, which covers the Troutdale station among other expenses, is $2.85 per $1,000 of assessed value. That revenue is not split among other government agencies.

The limited revenue, continually rising costs and ever-growing East County cities are why response times have gone up over the years, Larson said.

If a new district was formed, Larson explained, it would get to determine its own tax rate based on its budgetary needs. More money means more resources and personnel, which ultimately leads to quicker response times, he said.

The funding aspect seems to be what finally convinced Gresham leaders that pursuing a district model may be in their best interest after all.

At an Aug. 26 work session, the Gresham City Council unanimously decided to pursue a district model after learning of the growing costs at the Gresham Fire Department.

“It’s not about who has the fire department. It’s about the safety of all of our citizens,” City Councilor Janine Gladfelter said at that meeting.

Wood Village Mayor Jairo Rios-Campos agreed.

“We believe the district model is the best solution and right now we’re exploring what that means,” Rios-Campos told OPB.

Nailing down the details and actually establishing the district — which will require a vote from all four communities — will likely take a few years.

In the meantime, the cities are talking about continuing to contract with Gresham.

The other big focus for the cities is educating the public on the current realities of their fire services and what their options are. Because joining a fire district will mean an all-new property tax for east county residents, the union and city leaders know it will be a tough ask for voters.

“We need a strong educational campaign to the voters so they can understand the fire problem, the fire issues,” Larson said. “We’re doing our best as firefighters, but we just need more of us.”

Gresham City Manager Eric Schmidt acknowledged the city had not been as transparent with its community about the financials of its fire service as it could have been, adding that tax structure and fire service models can be difficult to understand.

Wunn, the city councilor from Troutdale, said one of the selling points for the community will be the ability to remove the cost of fire services from the city’s budget and free up money for establishing a city police department. The city currently contracts with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement.

While they know convincing the public will be a heavy lift, Larson and McAllister said initial conversations with the community have been positive.

“We can solve this problem together,” Larson said, “The problem gets bigger if we’re fractured.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/09/east-multnomah-county-oregon-gresham-troutdale-wood-village-fairview-fire/