Sparks, Reno and Truckee Meadows fire chiefs outline plan for shared dispatch, automatic aid; feasibility study targeted for 2026

Fire chiefs from the Sparks Fire Department, the Reno Fire Department and the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District told the Sparks City Council on April 25 they are pursuing deeper regional cooperation on automatic aid, dispatch integration and joint training, and that they are drafting a jointly funded feasibility and efficiency study they hope to complete by December 2026.

The update was delivered by Fire Chief Walt White of the Sparks Fire Department, who said an interagency working group has met weekly since February to focus on “cooperation, coordination, efficiency, effectiveness” and to draft regional standard operating guidelines for the most common critical incident types. The chiefs described technical and operational steps they are pursuing — including CAD‑to‑CAD linkage using Hexagon, regional response models embedded in dispatch, and consideration of a co‑located fire dispatch center — to reduce call transfer delays and send the closest appropriate resource regardless of jurisdiction.

Why it matters: regional dispatch and automatic aid can shorten response times and alter which department manages an…