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Edgewood and Milton are both looking at joining East Pierce. Last I heard last month administrative agreements were signed with East Pierce, which is the beginning of a merger/annexation. Pierce County Fire District #8 will merge into East Pierce while the Pierce County portion of Milton will be annexed into East Pierce and the King County portion of Milton will have to sign a contract for East Pierce to provide services to that area.

Orting Valley Fire and Rescue District 18 is looking for someone to merge with after East Pierce said they could not handle another merger at the same time as the Edgewood/Milton merger/annexation. Orting Valley has approached Graham Fire and Rescue about a merger.

Edmonds Fire Department is looking at whether they are going to keep their own fire department or sign a contract with Snohomish County Fire District #1.

Nick Welch

I haven't been following the tons of mergers on the west side of the mountains but are they ALL eventually going to merge to a fire authority within each county similar to what they did in Orange County, CA at the rate they're going?

Certain people want Yakima County to do that and get rid of all the fire districts and city departments and go with one fire authority. That's going to take a major communications system overhaul to get the communications side of that accomplished...

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Interoperability is an attitude, not a technology.

I don't know about forming a countywide fire authority. Probably not at this time. Maybe ten years from now who knows. I think it is mostly going to be a lot of smaller mergers first.

Nick

Anytime a government agency 'regroups' -- there can be major problems. However -- the basic radio plan for most "countywide" operations already exist. Back in the early 1950's -- when the VHF High band channels were first "allocated" -- each county within the state was assigned one or more frequencies. The entire State was assigned channels in the form of a checker board pattern -- hop skipping from one county to the next. The most common County Fire channels were 153.77, 153.89, 154.19, 154.25 and 154.43. Each county within the state has an existing license on one of these "common" countywide channels. Any new "countywide" Fire Department, Agency or Authority would be able to operate "from the get-go" on one of the "common" channels. It could be done. From a taxpayers point --as well as a firefighter / EMS provider view -- it must be done. It will save money, jobs and lives.

I am all for a regionalized approach to fire/ems. It can work if done properly as evidenced by East Pierce and the Valley Regional Fire Authority.

Nick

Just a clarification...Orting Valley did not approach Graham Fire. Graham Fire was contact by the City of Orting...

Also, there is a special meeting tomorrow night about this very subject...more to follow...

Why that sounds like inter op, interopra, interoperability. What kind of nonsense is that?

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"I was installing un-programmed radios"