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Skagit County Fire Protection Districts 10 and 19 will merge to become the Skagit County Regional Fire Authority after receiving approval from the majority of voters in the two districts, which include the rural areas of east Skagit County around State Route 20.
District 10 runs from Hamilton to Rockport State Park, with stations in Grassmere and Birdsview, and District 19 continues northeast to the Whatcom County line and south to nearly the Snohomish County line, with stations in Rockport and Marblemount.
The two districts, each governed by its own elected board of fire commissioners, have long provided mutual aid, and in 2023 they started planning for the possibility of joining together as one agency.
The merger would cut down on the duplication of services and apparatus redundancy, bring in more tax revenue to the fire authority and help responders better meet the demand for services that has grown considerably along with the population in rural Skagit County, according to the proposed Regional Fire Authority Plan.
District 10 Fire Chief Rod Coffell said that over the past decade, both districts have seen a significant increase in calls for service. In 2014 his district responded to 97 calls — by 2023 that number had grown to 298. In the same years, District 19 went from 120 to 194 calls.
This year to date, District 10 has already surpassed 400 calls for service.
While the proposition is not guaranteed to pass until the primary election is certified on Aug. 20, as of Aug. 14 it had almost 62% approval, with 812 votes in favor and 502 opposed.
Once the election is certified, the fire authority will go into effect on Sept. 30 and will operate with a board of five commissioners drawn from the existing boards, three from District 19 and two from District 10. Fire Chief Coffell will serve as the chief of the fire authority.
Property owners in the district will pay 90 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value to the new fire authority, up from 78 cents in District 10 and 33 cents in District 19.
Voters in another part of Skagit County look likely to approve a property tax levy for Fire District 14, which follows Interstate 5 from the Samish River to the Whatcom County line. The levy will go up to $1.05 per $1,000 of assessed value, from its current 81 cents. A similar ballot measure that would raise the levy to $1.25 from 92 cents for Fire District 8, north and east of Sedro-Woolley, is too close to call as of Aug. 14, with 1,297 votes opposed and 1,262 in favor.
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
