NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Board of County Commissioners agreed this past week to merge most of the rural fire districts in the county into one district.
"Now, there will be Reno County Fire District 1 and then there's Reno County Fire District 2 which is covered by Hutch Fire and then there's South Hutchinson Fire," said Reno County Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar. "Burrton runs into a little piece in the eastern part of the county and then Rice County runs into a portion of the northwest portion of the county."
What used to be fire districts 3,4,6,7,8, and 9 Reno-Kingman Joint Fire District 1 and Reno-Harvey Joint Fire District 2 are now merged into what will be the new Reno County Fire District one starting on January 1st of 2026. This will not move any of the current fire stations.
"Fire stations, they need to be centered around a volunteer hub so that means that if you placed a volunteer fire station out in the middle of nowhere that means people are driving a long distance to get to that piece of apparatus to respond to an emergency," Weishaar said. "If you put it where your volunteers are like where the stations currently are, you have the volunteers right there they can respond directly to the stations and then run to the emergent call."
The two new fire stations, one in Turon and one in Nickerson that are currently out for bid will be built.
"The emergency management office really doesn't see anything out of this," Weishaar said. "It's going to be a big lift for us for the next couple years between doing a budget and redoing all the response plans it's really going to create more work for us we're really focused on what it's going to provide to our citizens and provide to our community and we really think it's going to be a better response."
Eventually, the department would like to add one more employee to be in charge of operations and to work in tandem with the volunteer chiefs to make sure they have what they need.