PORT TOWNSEND — A plan to consolidate East Jefferson County fire departments hit a benchmark this week with the passing of a three-year contract to merge the Port Townsend and Chimacum/Tri-Area departments.

Fire department officials have begun preliminary discussions with Port of Port Townsend officials to establish a fire station near Jefferson County International Airport.

Continuing momentum gained from a November general election to merge county Fire Protection District Nos. 1 and 6 — a measure that passed with a 9-1 margin — an oversight board from the city of Port Townsend and District 1 entered into an agreement in which the Port Townsend and Chimacum/Tri-Area fire departments’ budgets are combined for a minimum of three years.

Each department has an annual budget of about $1.5 million, giving East Jefferson County officials about $3 million to work with.

“By taking these districts and combining them, it’s a way to move funds around from administration and legislation and put it into operation,” said East Jefferson County Fire Chief Mike Mingee.

“It puts more boots on the streets.”

Better response times

Mingee cited as an example that the effect of merging fire departments in districts 1 and 6 led to an improvement in response time by 3½ minutes in certain areas.

Mingee said in the past year, about $100,000 has been saved in administrative costs, $6,000 in insurance premiums and about $4,000 in costs per emergency call because of the mergers.

Although costs to the fire department are not going down, the money saved on administrative cost allows for more money to go to operations, Mingee said.