Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District Meeting 2/19/19 (Notes by Tom Daly)

These are only selected highlights.  Emphasis added by Wolgast.

Sierra County, CA automatic aid agreement – Chief Moore has finalized the agreement as to the limited service area (not the whole county), TM units to respond to fires and the fee to be charged to Sierra County.  The agreement will now be reviewed by the District Attorney and will likely be presented to the Board for final approval in March.  This agreement is much more favorable to TMFPD than the current version.

Gerlach – A report from the District’s consultant Mike Brown will be presented in March on options to provide fire protection to this small community in northern Washoe County (not within the TMFPD).  Chief Moore indicated he is ready to take over operations (from the County) but the financials remain to be resolved as this is a County, not a TMFPD, responsibility.  The cost is about $1 million per year for staffing, supplies, equipment and station operational costs and some needed station modifications

Fleet additions –  Two new 3,000 gallon water tenders are here and being outfitted with radios and related equipment. They should be in service in early March at the latest, with one going to TM#33 Foothill.  The Board approved Chief Moore’s request for $80K for equipment (hose, ladders, tools, radios, etc. ) for the two new Type 1 structure engines due to be delivered in May.  The boards also approved $93K for two new command vehicles, typically for the two Operations Battalion Fire Chiefs.

Automatic aid – For CY2018 automatic aid from TMFPD to Sparks was at a rate of 20 times for each one time Sparks responded to TMFPD.  This imbalance is due to the poor distribution of fire resources by Sparks.  Every time a TM engine is servicing Sparks, it is not available to service taxpayers of the TMFPD.  TMFPD also responds more to Reno than Reno responds to TM.  The automatic vehicle locator (AVL) technology is in place and working for TMFPD (WCSO dispatch) and Sparks dispatch but not in Reno.  Reno refuses to provide the data base to ensure the ‘closest engine’ responds (to fires) per the existing automatic aid agreement.

Stonegate – This City development underway cannot be served by Reno Fire as they lack the staff to do so, even with the developer providing a temporary station (house) and future station (land and building but no equipment or vehicles).  As such, TMFPD will have to serve this community without getting any tax revenue or reimbursement as they TM be the ‘closest unit’ under the current automatic aid agreement.

Truckee Meadows Water Authority Meeting Highlights 2/20/19 (Bill Maggiora)

Bill Hauck discussed the current (as of 19 Feb 2019) snowpack.

• He said that it was higher than normal by 160 to 175 percent of normal, depending on the area, for 19 February.  This was still way below what we had in 2017.
• Bill also discussed water storage and Truckee River flow, which they wanted to keep below 5,000 Cubic Feet per Second.
• Apparently, the available water storage facilities are pretty full and they may need to start releasing water to avoid flooding when the snow melts.
• Bill said that we had a three-year supply of water stored in Lake Tahoe now.

—> Don’t forget to check out the In the Media page for recent articles and opinions regarding area development.