Why do Districts Exist?

There are several factors that will influence the development of a fire district, however, typically the main driving factor is to bring smaller communities and unincorporated areas together under one fire service providor. This helps to provide better service to all the area while reducing redundancy in service and costs associated with this redundancy.

The next question you might ask is how can there be a redundancy in fire protection coverage? Every community needs fire trucks right? This is true however, often times small neighboring communities will have stations very close together because of the size of these communities. Each of these communities will have several types of fire apparatus as well to service each community. This close proximity and large number of apparatus causes an overlap in coverage based on time and distance. Stations staffing and apparatus are a big cost to each community. Having the ability to share these resources while providing better area coverage makes fire districts very effective.