It’s now official. The Grass Valley and Nevada City City Councils have approved the integration of their fire departments. But the public won’t likely notice the change much, if at all. Division Chief Sam Goodspeed says it starts December 23rd, when the two formerly separate departments will have a single administration overseen by Fire Chief Mark Buttron…

Response times to fires and medical calls won’t change. And the departments have already been operating for nearly 20 years under an agreement that allowed for a drop boundary, closest resource response between the agencies. But Goodspeed says Nevada City personnel are now essentially employed by Grass Valley, under that city’s Memorandum of Understanding. He says the departments have actually been trying out the change, as a pilot program, over the last couple of years. The new organization is tentatively being labeled as the “Grass Valley-Nevada City Fire Department”, but it won’t be very obvious…

The Grass Valley Fire Department was founded in 1853 and the Nevada City Fire Department in 1860.