A dispute in staffing size between the east county firefighters union and the Camas-Washougal Fire Department has gone public after the union wrote about its issues in a Facebook post that has been seen more than 180,000 times since it was published March 7.
In the post, East Clark Professional Fire Fighters wrote that fire engine crews are made up of two people, when state law requires at least three to act when responding to a fire.
“The employees we have, they have gone above and beyond and put themselves in jeopardy for a long time in order to provide a high quality service for the people we serve,” said Adam Brice, president of the union. “They’ve done that by taking risks that they shouldn’t have to take in this already hazardous career field.”
The Facebook post was spurred on when two firefighters from the department took one of those risks to rescue someone from a fire on Feb. 14 at a house on Prune Hill.