I joined the Vashon Fire Department 50 years ago and still respond — especially as our needs for emergency service grow. I ask everyone to vote “yes” for the fire district levy. The ballots will be mailed to you on Oct.17 and must be returned no later than Nov. 7.

A key reason for passing the levy — a first since 1990 — is to provide additional firefighter-EMTs for consistent coverage of three or more simultaneous 911 calls. That happens at least twice a month, but we do not have enough on duty people to handle that many calls.

It happened again on Sunday, Aug. 27. We received all these 911 calls within 58 minutes: at 10:56 a.m., two bicyclists injured on Morgan Hill required transport to Tacoma; 11:11 a.m., a patient on Vashon required a medic transport to Seattle; 11:11 a.m., an automatic fire alarm alerted for a possible structure fire, a false alarm; 11:54 a.m., a patient required transport to Seattle. Thus three career firefighters, one island volunteer firefighter, one of our two medics and our chief were all at work transporting patients to the mainland. Fortunately, we didn’t have yet another call because all we had left on the island for emergency responses were one medic (non-firefighter) and our assistant chief. Imagine a residential fire or brush fire under this condition.

Since 1990 our emergency call volume has increased 260 percent from 600 to 1,600 calls a year. Eighty percent of those calls are medical emergencies. An aid or medic transport to the mainland requires three hours. A second simultaneous aid call means two more firefighter/EMTs are off-island. A third call requires a “call-back” alert in hopes some of our few available island volunteers will be able to respond.

Thank you.

— Mike Kirk