The new year posed a new challenge to residents in rural northwest Wisconsin when
Great Divide Ambulance stopped serving the area on January 1st, 2021.
To keep everyone safe, new programs picked up the slack. That includes the Ashland Fire Department.
"If the volunteer services are struggling, that puts a bigger strain on the career services such as Ashland Fire. We are getting requested to assist them more and more which ties up resources from our community, and lessens our ability to provide care to our community," said Lt. Matt Spangler with the Ashland Fire Department.
Lt. Spangler attributes the strain to a lack of interested applicants.
He said if more people wanted to become EMTs this gap in service may not have been an issue.