By 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning, Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District services were operational.
The move comes after the county and City of Reno came to an impasse on how to provide mutual aid to each other. Because both sides couldn't come to an agreement, their 12 year marriage has officially ended in divorce.
Now that Reno Fire and Truckee Meadows fire district aren't working side by side, it makes you wonder. What if we encounter another Washoe Drive or Caughlin fire again? Then what happens?
"If the county calls for mutual aid, we will respond within our means," says Reno Fire Chief Mike Hernandez. "If we call for mutual aid, we expect the same from all our neighboring partners."
The problem is - no such agreement even exists. Reno Fire Department now only responds to calls inside the city limits. Truckee Meadows covers everything else, and they have mutual aid agreements with other fire services. The deconsolidation between Reno and Truckee Meadows could cause challenges.
"But the citizens of Reno will see no difference in their fire service delivery," says Hernandez. "So it's going to be business as usual for the citizens of Reno."
Reno Fire used a $13.7 million federal fire & emergency grant to fully-staff all 14 fire stations for the next two years. That means stations which were once closed, are up and running again. Station 19 on Hawk Meadow Trail is operational as of Sunday morning.
"It is a positive for this neighborhood that the station is physically closest is going to be open consistently now," says Battalion Chief Bob Knoll with Reno Fire.
As for Truckee Meadows, they now have 24 stations staffed with 105 firefighters and 120 volunteers.
"It's been a very, very intense two months," says Chief Charles Moore. "We've had a lot of work to do to get ready for this day."
Station 15 on Quartz Lane in Sun Valley changed hands, from Reno Fire to Truckee Meadows. Crews swapped out equipment and dispatch systems without any problems.
"About an hour of time to prep and get everybody ready to go and then we started having some incidents after that and everything has gone smoothly all day so far," says Capt. Alex Kukulus with Truckee Meadows.
Moore says the de consolidation was necessary because Truckee Meadows faced a $2.5 million dollar shortfall.
"Financial sustainability was the big reason why we had to do this," he says. "And we would have been insolvent by 2015 had we not taken this step."
This new setup is not ideal for Reno Fire or Truckee Meadows. But both sides are confident a deal will get done.
"Of course we're still negotiating mutual aid with the City of Reno, so we hope to have that done in the near future," says Moore.
Written by Adam Rasmussen
