We know the need for fast, reliable ambulance service in northern Butler County.

A key player in filling that need is an agency we’ve highlighted again and again on our pages: The Karns City Regional Ambulance Service.

The service currently operates out of a shed and two stalls rented from the Petrolia Volunteer Fire Department station. It serves 11 municipalities in the region.

And while you sure wouldn’t know that from the service, it is high time the service have its own space. The service is invaluable to the community, so it must become a permanent fixture. Now is the time to ensure it does stay, complete with its own space.

We reported Sunday the service bought property in Fairview Township that was once a trailer court. The four acres of a seven-acre property, known as the Gifford Estate at 1411 Kittanning Pike, is expected to become the site of a new ambulance station, after it is subdivided.

One parcel is a lot for the new station, and the other has a three-bedroom brick home that the service is selling to pay off the mortgage, said Mark Laurer, president of the ambulance service.

To make the station possible, however, it will take collaboration. Collaboration sounds easy enough, but rarely comes easy enough, but for a cause like this, we’re hopeful the region will come together to make the station a reality.

The strategy behind the property purchase will pay off the mortgage, ideally, but then, the service will work with the 11 municipalities it serves, the county commissioners and state and federal elected officials to obtain funding to build the station at some point in the future.

We’re interested in seeing this happen. A permanent home for the Karns City Regional Ambulance Service is worth the effort.

— TL