Report Prepared by: Casey Wilson, Interim Fire Chief
Title
SUBJECT: Update Regarding Stop Gap Aid Agreement for Fire Services and Emergency Operations Coordination Between the City of Merced and Merced County
REPORT IN BRIEF
Update regarding the Stop Gap Aid Agreement for Fire Services and Emergency Operations Coordination between the City of Merced and Merced County for the period of January 1, 2025, to June 30, 2025.
Body
DISCUSSION
Background
The City of Merced City Council provided direction to staff to explore opportunities to provide Fire and emergency operation services to Merced County to assist in area generally defined as north of Hwy 140, west of Kibby Rd, West of N. Lake Rd. and East of G St, and south of Old Lake Rd. This area was previously being provided Fire and EMS services through Merced County - CALFIRE with primary responses coming from Station 85 located on McKee Rd. Due to budgetary constraints being faced by Merced County this station closed on January 1, 2025.
Both city and county staff held a series of meetings to discuss various options. Additionally, city staff discussed options and received feedback from the City Council Public Safety Sub Committee. The entire council was briefed at the May 6, 2024, regular meeting and the special meeting held on December 9, 2024. Council approved a Stop Gap Aid Agreement for Fire and EMS Services with Merced County on December 16, 2024. Council also provided direction to come back with an update in July of 2025.
This Stop Gap Aid Agreement for Fire and EMS Services with Merced County covers a two-year term from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2026.
Aid Agreement Details
A copy of the agreement is included as Attachment 1. Specific details of this agreement include the following.
Term - The agreement covers a two-year term from January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2026. The term of the agreement generally follows the timing of the 2023 SAFER Grant. During this time period the city has additional grant paid positions, twenty-four in total, that provide greater flexibility to allow for this aid agreement to be serviced. The SAFER grant ends in March 2027.
Responsibilities - Under the Aid Agreement the City responds to incidents in the county service area defined in the agreement, Exhibit A. Calls will come into the CALFIRE Dispatch Center and then a request for aid will be made to the City’s PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point). For structure and vegetation fires both City Fire and CALFIRE will respond to the incident. The city’s response time is normally less than CALFIRE being dispatched from Station 81, Martin Luther King Blvd. - Hwy 59.
Operationally, city resources remain on scene until such time as CALFIRE is able to take over the incident. The city responds with multiple assets consistent with the city’s training and incident protocols. For other incident types such as emergency medical incidents only the city responds. The County and CALFIRE retains all other jurisdictional responsibilities such as fire prevention, investigation, plan review, and incident reporting - except emergency medical and vehicular accidents.
Service Approach - The approach to providing services are based on the closest resource concept. That means any asset from any station that is in closest proximity will respond to a service call. On March 3, 2025, MFD launched Squad 53, a new emergency response unit stationed at Fire Station 53. The Squad concept is really to address capacity needs based on call volumes. The Squad concept allows for a small company, normally two firefighters, to assist with the overflow of supplemental calls. Staffing for the Squad was done with existing city firefighters, no new positions were added.
Fee for Service - The fee for service for Merced County is $315,384, for the first year. The agreement amount will increase in year two based on the approved COLA for Fire and EMS positions, 4% for the second year. Total revenue for January 1, 2025 - June 30, 2025 was $157,692.
Calls for Service
Prior to entering into the agreement fire staff did an analysis and the number of annual calls for the proposed county service area. For the prior year it is just over one per day, 417 last year.
For the time period January 1, 2025 - June 30, 2025, MFD has responded to a total of 227 automatic aid incidents. Calls for service per day work out to 1.25.
Incident Responses
100 Series - Fires 15
(Structures, vehicles, vegetation, rubbish, other fires)
300 Series - EMS 158
(Medical Incidents)
400 Series - Hazardous Condition 3
(Spills, chemical releases, electrical equipment problems)
500 Series - Service Calls 7
(Water problems, smoke odor, animal rescue, public assist, unauthorized burning)
600 Series - Good Intent Calls 42
(Dispatched and cancelled en route, no emergency found, steam mistaken for smoke, good intent calls)
700 Series - False Alarms 2
(Malicious false alarms, system malfunction, unintentional system or detector operation)
Total 227
Since some incidents require more than a single unit, MFD provided a total of 257 unit responses for this time period.
Unit Responses
Unit Incidents
Engine 51 13
Engine 52 2
Engine 53 25
Engine 54 58
Engine 55 129
Truck 51 8
Squad 53 10
Battalion 1 12
Total 257
Time on Task - Total time on task for MFD units for this time period was 63 hours. Total time on task when accounting for all staff was 320 hours. Average time on task for each incident is 17 minutes.
On Going Discussions - This stop gap agreement provides a two-year period to identify additional options to explore different approaches to services. One that has previously been discussed is a potential Reciprocal Automatic Aid Agreement. Currently the technical infrastructure is not in place to accommodate this service approach since it would require direct communication between the city and CALFIRE Dispatch through a Computer Aided Dispatch system (CAD). Having CAD to CAD in place would allow for any asset to respond to an incident based on proximity. There are some other issues that would likely need to be addressed such as staffing levels as well as ensuring there are paramedic services, Advanced Life Support (ALS), provided on each responding apparatus.
Both Cal Fire and City of Merced staff have worked with our CAD vendors to determine cost for CAD to CAD solutions. CALFIRE CAD vendor, Peraton provided an estimate of $236,430. City of Merced CAD vendor, Tyler New World provided an estimate of $37,600. Total cost estimate for a two-way CAD to CAD interface is estimated at $274,030. On going annual maintenance cost for CALFIRE vendor is $15,000. City of Merced annual maintenance cost would increase by $2,520.
In addition to the CAD to CAD interface, Fire staff is exploring another possible solution. Tablet Command is a mobile incident command and response solution that increases situational awareness, speeds incident response, streamlines incident management and provides firefighter accountability. CALFIRE has already implemented the use of Tablet Command. Fire Staff is still exploring if Tablet Command can also serve as a CAD to CAD solution that will streamline PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) processes. Tablet Command has additional benefits in the form of cost savings as MDT (Mobile Data Terminals) can be replaced by more cost-effective tablet solutions.
ATTACHMENTS
1. City and Merced County Stop Gap Fire Services Agreement
2. Automatic Aid Call Distribution Map
3. City Council Presentation - July 21, 2025