05/09/2026
As many of you have heard, Sedgwick County Fire District 1 has decided to terminate our current Automatic Aid and Mutual Aid contracts with Cheney Fire Department and the other Volunteer Departments in Sedgwick County in 90-days.
What does this mean for the Cheney Fire Department and our constituents? Cheney Fire will continue to provide emergency services as normal to the City of Cheney and our territory, which includes the 5 townships of Grand River, Morton, and Erie in Sedgwick County and Vinita and Evan Townships in Kingman County. Cheney Fire responds to 233 square miles, from 311th St W into Kingman County and from the Reno County to Sumner County line.
What do these agreements that are being terminated by Sedgwick County Fire District 1 provide? They provide an automatic response from Cheney Fire to structure fires in the cities of Garden Plain and Viola and in return we receive Automatic Aid from Sedgwick County Fire District 1 to the City of Cheney for structure fires. The mutual aid agreement allows both departments to request aid in other situations across our coverage area throughout Sedgwick County.
What's the difference between an automatic aid agreement and mutual aid agreement?
An Automatic Aid is an agreement between two or more fire departments, where in this situation both parties are notified of a structure fire in the agreed area at the same time as to not delay responses.
Mutual Aid is an agreement that allows departments to request aid from others. This request is usually made after the primary fire department has arrived on scene and assessed the situation and needs additional resources to handle the situation in a safe and timely manner. These calls are usually large grass fires or structure fires in rural areas that need tenders for water supply.
In the past year (May 1, 2025- April 30, 2026) Cheney Fire Department has responded to 382 calls, with 151 Fire Calls and 231 EMS calls. In this timeframe, we have provided mutual aid to SCFD1 one time and received mutual aid from them one time. We have received five Automatic Aid calls from them, in which we disregarded them three of the five times because they were not needed. The seven calls we shared services on in the past year accounts for 1.8 percent of Cheney Fire Calls. We have also provided mutual aid to Kingman and Reno County four times.
Since 1909, Cheney Fire Department has remained committed to responding to medical and fire calls to assist our residents. Mutual aid agreements are an integral part in how fire departments operate across the nation. We take pride in helping the many departments we have mutual aid with, knowing when the time comes, they will return the support.
During the next 90 days we will work with SCFD1 and the other affected communities to come to a resolution on an updated agreement or gather the required information on what our districts options are.
