Maine
Maine towns surprised by sudden ambulance service bils
Bangor Daily News
PENOBSCOT COUNTY, Maine — An unexpected change from Northern Light Health threatens to leave multiple rural Penobscot County towns without their long-standing ambulance service unless they can come up with tens of thousands of dollars on short notice.
Seven towns will have to pay Northern Light Health for ambulance services — a change the towns said they didn’t expect — while insurance and patients also continue paying the healthcare giant.
Eddington, Etna, Dedham, Dixmont, Glenburn, Kenduskeag and Newburgh received letters in June about the changes, said Andrea McGraw, associate vice president of Emergency Medical Services, Northern Light Medical Transport and Emergency Care. Other towns have heard they’ll also be affected, but Northern Light said it’s “premature” to talk about other regions as those contracts have not been reviewed.
These contract disputes are just the latest example of rural Maine towns struggling to maintain ambulance services amid rising costs. Other towns have had to contract with neighboring towns, hire private ambulance companies or even purchase their own ambulances to continue providing services to their residents.
For years, Northern Light paid the towns to provide emergency medical services before an ambulance from the health care system arrived.
Dixmont received about $2,500 a year for those services, the town’s First Selectman David Bright said. The money went to the town’s volunteer fire and rescue department.
The Dedham Fire Department received a “small stipend” for the medical services it provided before the ambulance arrived to transport patients, Dedham Fire Chief Craig Shane said.
Contracts between those towns and Northern Light end this year. Now Northern Light will charge the towns a yearly fee of $17 a resident, McGraw said.
Reimbursement for ambulance services are at an all-time low, which means Northern Light carries the cost of whatever insurance and patients do not pay, McGraw said. Paying people who work in emergency medical services, as well as the upkeep of ambulances and equipment is expensive, she said.
“In order to continue to care for our Maine communities for generations to come, we have to make some changes,” McGraw said.
The per capita charge model is used across the country, with fees ranging in price from $3.50 per capita in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, to $55.95 per capita in 2018 in Vermont.
“The cost of municipal-based EMS is high, and we can no longer avoid making this change,” McGraw said. “Our rates are at the low end of providing this service.”
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Towns are required to have a contract for medical transport of people, so an agreement will have to be reached to ensure ambulance services continue, Shane said.
Even with a new contract, there is no guarantee that an ambulance will respond to a call, something Shane said he wants to address in the new contract. Northern Light was unable to send an ambulance to 28 percent of his department’s calls last year, he said.
“Sign a contract to do what?” Shane asked. “Have an ambulance service that struck out 28 percent of the time? That’s disheartening.”
Dixmont’s contract in which it’s paid by Northern Light ends Dec. 31 . The town will have to pay $20,587 a year to continue receiving ambulance services. But the town cannot spend that money until residents vote on a budget at its next annual town meeting on March 15, 2025.
The new contract is not yet finalized, so it’s unclear what will happen to the ambulance service in the three-month gap from the end of the old contract to the town meeting.
Dixmont doesn’t know where it will find the money, as it hasn’t started budget preparations, Bright said.
“We have an obligation to provide health and safety to our occupants so if that’s what we’ve got to do, we’ll do it,” Bright said.
Dedham learned about the changes days after the town finalized its budget July 1, Shane said. For years the towns have had it good with the way the contract works, and a change made sense at the business level, especially with staffing issues. It’s the way the change was presented and the amount requested that is the problem, he said.
“It’s painful,” Shane said, referring to how the town learned about the change just after finalizing its budget.
Dedham will pay $30,000 for the ambulance service. Shane said he’s thankful the per capita charge is based on permanent residents and not seasonal residents.
“It’s going to be pinching pennies for the next 11 months to scrimp and save on a budget that’s already tight.”
(c)2024 the Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine)
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HARPSWELL (WGME) — The Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office says a person was hospitalized after a shed fire Wednesday night.
Firefighters were called to 23 Smokehouse Road in Harpswell for a shed fire around 7 p.m.
Crews quickly put out the fire and kept it from spreading into the woods.
An unhoused person who had been living in the shed suffered burns and smoke inhalation.
They were taken to Maine Medical Center for treatment.
Investigators believe the fire may have been electrical in nature.
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The fire remains under investigation.
Three tornadoes have been confirmed across New England so far in 2026, and remarkably, all of them have occurred in Vermont.
Two of those tornadoes touched down during severe thunderstorms on June 18, when a potent weather system swept across the region.
Vermont tornadoes in 2026 (WGME).
The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado in Lincoln with peak winds of 105 mph and another EF-1 tornado in Woodstock with winds reaching 100 mph.
Earlier this spring, an EF-1 tornado struck Williamstown on April 16 with estimated winds of 90 mph.
This week’s Climate Chronicles question comes from Kate:
With severe weather last week, how often do we actually see tornadoes touch down in Maine?
Maine tornado activity (WGME).
Historically, Maine averages about two tornadoes each year, with most occurring between June and August.
Most storms develop during the late afternoon and early evening, typically between 3 and 9 p.m., when hours of sunshine have heated the ground and created the instability needed for thunderstorms to form.
The last confirmed tornado to touch down in Maine was in 2023.
Average amount of tornadoes that touch down in each New England state per year (WGME).
Massachusetts and Connecticut also average about two tornadoes per year, with many occurring across the flatter terrain of western portions of both states.
In Massachusetts, the broad Connecticut River Valley stretching through Springfield has earned the nickname “New England’s Tornado Alley” due to its history of tornado activity.
Vermont, on the other hand, typically averages just one tornado annually. With three confirmed tornadoes already in 2026, the state has already exceeded its yearly average by two, making this an unusually active year for tornadoes in the Green Mountain State.
Maine’s tornado history (GoSanAngelo, WGME).
Since 1950, Maine has recorded 140 tornadoes. None have been rated stronger than an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, the system used to classify tornado intensity based on the damage they cause.
Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not assigned ratings while they are occurring. Instead, National Weather Service survey teams assess damage after the storm has passed, examining impacts to homes, buildings, trees, and other structures.
From that damage, meteorologists estimate the tornado’s wind speeds and assign an EF rating ranging from EF0 to EF5.
While Maine has experienced its share of tornadoes over the decades, the state has never recorded a violent EF4 or EF5 tornado.
Do you have any weather questions? Email our Weather Authority team at weather@wgme.com. We’d love to hear from you!
PORTLAND — Perhaps the June Swoon is over for the Portland Hearts of Pine.
A flurry of second-half activity Wednesday night resulted in four goals and a much-needed 5-1 USL League One victory against the Richmond Kickers that had fans buzzing with feel-good frenzy at Fitzpatrick Stadium.
Ollie Wright scored the go-ahead goal on a header off a great cross from Jaden Jones-Reilly in the 57th minute. In short order, Konstantinos Georgallides and Aboubacar Camara each added a goal, and then Camara got a second late in extra time.
Diego Gonzalez, playing his third game with Portland, added friskiness to the midfield and opened the scoring with a header in the first half. He also assisted on Camara’s first goal with a slick through pass.
Portland had lost four straight games, including three in a row in USL1. The Hearts are now 4-5-5 in league play and moved from 13th to 10th in the 17-team league, just three points out of the eight-team playoff picture.
It was a dramatic reversal from Portland’s most recent game, a 5-1 loss at Westchester SC on Friday that was shown live back in Portland at an open-air setting in Monument Square.
PREVIOUSLY IN JUNE
When the month of May ended with a gritty home win against Spokane, Portland was 3-2-4 in league play and overcoming injuries.
June has not been as kind. Portland entered Wednesday’s game on a four-game losing streak. Digging into the numbers, the skid looked even worse.
It was the first time the Hearts had lost four straight games in their brief year-and-a-half history. They were outscored 15-5 in that stretch, and 15-3 starting with the two extra-time goals they allowed in a 3-2 loss at Corpus Christi.
Portland had also lost three straight against USL League One games for the first time.
Two of the four losses were ugly 5-1 affairs. Portland didn’t lose by more than three goals and had just four losses by two or more goals in 2025.
RETURNS AND NOTES
Portland was glad to have Mikey Lopez back on the game-day roster. Lopez, who had bene out more than month because of an injury, entered as a 75th-minute sub with Portland leading 4-1. … Sean Vinberg, one of Portland’s primary starting center backs in 2025, became the second former Hearts player to return to Fitzpatrick, wearing the captain’s band for Richmond. Vinberg was released at the end of the 2025 season. He made 33 starts for Portland, second most on the team. … Maine Gatorade High School Soccer Players of the Year Finn Coburn (Scarborough) and Noelle Mallory (Cape Elizabeth) handled the honorary coin toss before the match.
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