Fire District 2, which covers rural areas north and south of Hillsboro, had hired full-time firefighters in order to cover calls around the clock.
However, the district will now lay off four of its 12 full-time firefighters because voters turned down a $3.39 million operating levy in the November election.
That means that at the end of December, volunteers will have to handle emergency calls that come in between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.
"If a person is having a heart attack, it'll be 10 to 20 minutes before we get there," says Brent Wing, a volunteer firefighter. "That could be a matter of life or death."
"We need more than we had," says Dennis England, Fire District 2 Chief. "To cut one-third of our force is really going to put us into a real bind."
Call volumes in the district jumped from just over 640 in 1993 to more than 1,000 last year.
Full-time firefighters can be on the road in less than a minute, but getting volunteers to the fire scene can take three to five minutes or even longer.
The fire district says it may go back to voters for yet another levy in May.
