In early August, Governor Inslee announced a mandate requiring all health care workers, including firefighters, get the COVID-19 vaccine.
"He wanted to make sure that we have a healthy frontline workforce, you know in the medical arena," said the International Association of Fire Fighters 7th District Vice President, Ricky Walsh.
Officials are now looking at what effects this will have on fire crews.
"We believe that there are going to be a certain amount of firefighters that are going to leave for various reasons, you know, that they may have that they don't want to get a vaccine," explained Walsh.
He estimates that of the 9,100 career firefighters in the state of Washington, between 20-30% of them are not vaccinated.
Walsh says some may get the vaccine but others have personal reasons for not being vaccinated.