South Lane Fire scales back ambulance service after levy defeat

South Lane County Fire & Rescue has scaled back ambulance service after voters rejected a levy that would have funded six new full-time positions and one apprenticeship. On low-staffing days, the district said it will run only one ambulance, and that unit will rotate between Cottage Grove and Creswell instead of maintaining the wider coverage pattern it had tried to preserve.

The change lands hardest in the places that rely on that one rig first. South Lane’s service area stretches from the Douglas County border on the south to Creswell on the north, and from Dorena on the east to Lorane on the west. Under the new operating model, the ambulance cannot leave district boundaries, will no longer provide standby service for special events, and may not answer some non-emergency calls, including medical alarms and certain vehicle crashes.

That means the practical answer for a household calling 911 is different from last month. In Cottage Grove or Creswell, one city may be covered while the ambulance is already tied up in the other, and the district’s own limits now rule out the kind of backup coverage that event organizers and outlying neighborhoods had come to expect. South Lane also said service use rates will rise significantly as it moves to a more restrictive model.

The funding squeeze has been building for months. At a Cottage Grove City Council meeting in April, district leaders including Chief Jon Wooten and Deputy Chief Justin Baird presented the five-year levy as Measure 20-383 and described a staffing crisis. The proposal called for a 94-cent tax per $1,000 of assessed property value beginning in the 2026-2027 fiscal year.

Voters rejected that ask by more than 59 percent, with election results putting the no vote at about 60 percent. It was the second straight defeat for the same funding increase after a failure in November 2025. South Lane said the decision leaves it trying to answer a higher call volume with costs that have kept rising, especially for medical supplies and equipment, while levy revenue has stayed flat.

The current levy is scheduled to expire in June 2028, but the service cut shows the district is already tightening operations long before that deadline. For residents across Cottage Grove, Creswell, and the surrounding part of southern Lane County, the change means fewer backup options, narrower ambulance access, and a system that is now built around scarcity rather than spare capacity.