Hey all. I was just wondering if anyone else in the country has response areas and automatic aid agreements as jacked up as my area. I'm in a little one engine house town in the roughly the middle of St Louis County. Now that may not sound bad until I tell you that there are 43 seperate fire districts or departments to cover the county. Each one has seperate SOGs, equipment, ideas, budgets, union contracts, work hours and conditions, pay, the list goes on. Hell we even have different schedules, at least 4 different dispatch centers, and we are all paid departments and members of the same IAFF Local. As if that isn't bad enough we also have no central EMS provider. Almost all of us are ALS equiped providers and most with our own ALS transport. All this together ends up with automatic and mutal aid agreements all over the map. Oh and that doesn't include St Louis City wich is technically its own county. We all make it work by training together and good well written automatic aid agreements. We've used automatic aid here for decades and it works seamlessly. Anywhere that is just starting a program of automatic aid should study our area as an example.