In West County, the Fire District partners with the City of Pinole and the Rodeo-Hercules Fire Protection District to operate Battalion 7. In the past, each entity provided two suppression units and a chief officer to cover one shift. Additionally, we rely on automatic aid with Richmond and El Cerrito to supplement our resources due to their proximity in the region. The City of Pinole closed Fire Station 74 on July 1, 2011 and Rodeo-Hercules Fire Protection District has announced they will close one station on a rotating basis beginning December 14th. This will reduce the capacity of our Battalion 7 resources by 33%. This will have an operational impact of longer response times and less capacity for serious or multiple incidents. Additionally, there is a fiscal impact to the District as well. In order to replace those resources, our District would have to rely more heavily on automatic aid from the City of Richmond. Unfortunately, we have to pay a per incident fee for any responses above the number of responses that we provide to them. The District continues to explore options to minimize the adverse impact of station closures by our Battalion 7 partners.