VIDEO: Following the passage of Senate Bill 319 during the 2025 legislative session, Washoe County, along with the cities of Reno and Sparks, have created and are moving forward with a regional fire study board. The board aims to eventually consolidate the Reno Fire Department, Sparks Fire Department, and Truckee Meadows Fire into a single large agency. “Having worked in a system like that personally here in Washoe County, we know how effective it is,” said Reno Fire Chief Dave Cochran.
The board consists of two council members from Reno and Sparks, as well as two Washoe County commissioners. Their responsibilities include evaluating fire response times, operational costs, legal frameworks, and governance, among other tasks. In 2012, the agencies were grouped but later chose to split. However, Chief Cochran noted that firefighting operations were more efficient when consolidated.
“I know it was very effective in terms of delivering the service in the best way possible. And that comes from the fact that if you manage all the resources, if you have all control of all the resources, and by that I mean the Sparks resources, the Reno resources, the county resources, you can manipulate them, and I mean that in a good way,” Cochran said. “We want to get back to what we were like about 15 years ago when we had a regional approach to fire. This bill directs us to do that study. The study will hopefully provide that roadmap on how we move that forward.”
