Reno and regional fire chiefs report progress on shared dispatch, evacuation planning; ask for next steps

Reno and regional fire leaders told the City Council on May 21 that they have moved from discussion to implementation on multiple fronts of a long‑running effort to make fire and emergency medical services (EMS) in the Truckee Meadows faster and more consistent. The update summarized weekly work by an interjurisdictional managers group and operational chiefs, progress on drafting regional operating guidelines, and three near‑term lines of work: (1) unify dispatch routing and implement a shared computer‑aided dispatch (CAD) system (Hexagon) to enable faster, automated aid; (2) prepare a formal, consultant‑led study of regional governance and consolidation options (RFP to be issued by a managers’ committee if the Legislature keeps the study mandate); and (3) build out evacuation planning and route risk analyses for Washoe County and the City of Reno.

Chief David Cochran of Reno Fire said the group had met nearly every week since February and had completed most of a core set of regional standard operating guidelines focused on safety (RIT, Mayday, firefighter safety) and training. Cochran and other chiefs described the Hexagon CAD as the linchpin: once fully configured and tested it will show Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) across jurisdictions and make it possible to automatically route the closest appropriate unit to a call regardless of jurisdictional boundary. Cody Schadl, director of public safety dispatch, said the CAD configuration is still being tested and training up to 1,000 users is required; a September go‑live date has slipped and the vendor now estimates up to a 90‑day push. He emphasized the need for coordinated schedules so testing and training can be finished before switch‑over.

Cochran and the chiefs also described legislative activity: Senator Daley’s Senate Bill 319 (regional fire study/consolidation framework) was on the Assembly floor the same day; the draft as negotiated would require jurisdictions to appoint two representatives to govern the study committee and would permit the RFP process to be managed by that committee. Cochran said the working group had drafted an RFP that could be used once the committee convenes; the RFP would be for a consultant to evaluate operational models, governance options, costs and savings, service levels, and the financial/governance hurdles to consolidation.

Chief Andy Ancho (Reno) presented evacuation preparedness steps the region has started since the Feb. 6 meeting: public education (signups for Rave/Smart911 alerts; promotion of the Perimeter mapping platform for real‑time evacuation maps and road‑closure information), “go‑bag” messaging, and targeted outreach in wildland‑urban interface neighborhoods. He described two funded route/evacuation studies: a City of Reno Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) grant (about $244,000) to do a route risk analysis and entrapment risk assessment focused inside city boundaries; and a privately funded, county‑wide evacuation/route study (approximately $185,000) led by Washoe County with DRI and other subject matter experts to identify the top five countywide evacuation areas of concern. Both studies will use GIS and fire‑modeling to assess road connectivity, neighborhood densities, fuel loads, and potential entrapment corridors.

Questions from council members and the mayor pressed chiefs on interoperability details: how automatic aid will be triggered (currently by dispatch/judgment but Hexagon CAD will enable closer‑resource routing), how emergency alerts and the Perimeter site are used to notify residents, how NV Energy coordinates planned de‑energizations and emergency de‑energizations with fire agencies, and whether dispatch consolidation will include REMSA (ambulance) operations (chiefs said REMSA would be incorporated into a single CAD/dispatch). Chief Cochran and dispatch staff said existing AVL equipment is already on many rigs but those AVLs feed separate CAD systems today; the shared CAD is the key integration piece. Chiefs also reported labor‑group engagement and that an operations subgroup has met weekly to align training and field procedures.

Why this matters: Chiefs framed the effort as a continuum — from mutual/automatic aid (short term) to full consolidation (long term) — intended to reduce response delays across jurisdictional boundaries and to provide consistent public messaging and evacuation guidance. The council and chiefs also flagged preparedness gaps: public awareness of how evacuation alerts will be delivered and which websites (Perimeter, county WebEOC, Rave alerts) will carry official instructions; potential limits of municipal water and other infrastructure in extreme wildland events; and the need to coordinate communications across the three jurisdictions’ communications offices for consistent public messaging during incidents.

What’s next: Chiefs asked council to anticipate appointments to the study committee if the Legislature keeps SB319 in its final form; dispatch staff committed to a detailed Hexagon progress update once the vendor‑testing schedule is final; the two evacuation studies will proceed with the grants/donations already secured and publish findings within roughly a year; and staff said they will return with a plan to consolidate public‑alert signups and to improve outreach on Perimeter and other real‑time resources.