VIDEO: The Reno fire Department and Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority (RTAA) are celebrating the transfer of the airport’s fire services to the City of Reno. With the airport firefighters now working under the City of Reno, this opens a lot more opportunities for both agencies. Chris Jensen, chief operations and public safety officer for RTAA, says, “It’s a little bit of a bittersweet day because we’re handing over the responsibility of a department that we poured our hearts into. These are part of my family, part of my airport family.”
Even though the airport says they’re sad to no longer hold their department, they’re also saying the transfer will greatly improve their public safety. Daren Griffin, President/CEO of RTAA, says, “The airport’s growing, air service is growing, more businesses locating on and around the airport, and this provides the resources of the city of Reno fire department.” Reno Fire Chief David Cochran says, “We have so many resources that the airport doesn’t have, but they have a special skill set, the aircraft firefighting skill set that we don’t have.”
He tells us combining the skills and resources will be the best of both worlds, providing better services for both the airport and the community. For example, he says this will improve emergency response times more quickly for the airport. “If we need three engines, they don’t even have to think about it. We just send three engines. If we need a truck, if we need a special rescue, it’s not a go down the process, go down the decision tree, we can dispatch it immediately and it all comes here without delay and without any hiccups.”
