Palo Alto Teams With Menlo on Fire, Rescue and Medical Response

The Palo Alto Fire Department will begin working closely with the Menlo Park Fire Protection District after an agreement passed Monday night by the Palo Alto City Council.

The decision to improve "automatic aid"—which means automatically dispatching a fire unit to an incident regardless of jurisdiction or agency—will now head to the Fire Board later in August and will be fully implemented by year’s end, according to a statement released Wednesday by fire officials.

Atherton, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park are all covered by the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, while Palo Alto Fire covers Palo Alto, Stanford and SLAC.

Both agencies agreed to automatic aid for fire engines in November of 1999, but that agreement has not been renewed since then.

The new agreement would build upon the previous one and include responses from ladder trucks and battalion chiefs along the border region between the two jurisdictions. The deal would also expand fire engine responses.

Another change that comes with the deal is with emergency medical incidents, whereby if a primary unit is unavailable, the next closest and appropriate unit will respond, regardless of jurisdiction.

The new, expanded area affected by the agreement includes the City of East Palo Alto down to Bay Road and into the Sharon Heights portion of Menlo Park as well as other parts of the Fire District and into the eastern portions of Palo Alto along Highway 101.

The agreement also changes the primary agency responsible for responding to water rescues from Palo Alto to the Fire District.