The Reno Fire Department is not accepting any extra assistance or automatic aid from Washoe County, which broached the idea when the layoff of more than 30 Reno firefighters seemed imminent. That’s now stalled because of a lawsuit, but the offer was still on the table. That is, until the city council unanimously rejected it.
Reno Fire Chief Mike Hernandez told the council there’s no pressing need for such an agreement.
“Currently, our city is being adequately protected within the timelines and parameters that we’ve established. For example, last month, we pulled some data: for 100 percent of the calls last month our average response time was 5 minutes and 37 seconds.”
Specifically, the county identified 5 areas near city limits, like Hidden Valley and Mogul, where its stations could provide a faster response than the city‘s. But Hernandez says Reno is already responding quickly to emergencies in those areas, in most cases, around 7 minutes. He says their existing mutual aid agreement is good enough for now. Under that, either department can request help from the other, whereas automatic aid triggers an immediate response.
Of all the council members, Jenny Brekhus was the most interested in the offer.
“I don’t think that this is something that should be dismissed outright. It might not necessarily be something to jump on, but it might be a starting point for further discussion.”
According to Brekhus, closer collaboration could be valuable in the city’s more rural areas where the population is growing, like Verdi. But Mayor Bob Cashell says it would stretch the city too thin. He called the proposal "ridiculous" and urged the council to turn it down.
"What they've offered us, we're going to end up backing them [the county] more than they will us."
Not so, according to the county's fire chief, Charlie Moore: "The offer is can we be helpful, City of Reno? And their answer is...no.”
Moore says there wasn’t any expectation the city had to reciprocate, and automatic aid wasn’t the only option. It could have been to set up an immediate response to heart attacks, for example, since the county has paramedics on its trucks.
“There was an example in Boomtown where a gentleman fell victim to a sudden heart attack. We were, of course, just a few blocks away and the City and REMSA responded from much farther away. So that’s just an example of where we could be of assistance.”
To be clear, Reno can currently request aid from the county in that circumstance, but it’s not automatic. Moore says his department's agreement with Sparks works well, so there's no reason to believe it wouldn't be the same for Reno.
Reno's firefighters union supported the city's decision to decline the county's offer.
Reno City Council Members say they don’t want to rule out a closer partnership with the county, but Cashell, for his part, suggests that won’t happen until new people are in power in both governments.
