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BACKGROUND In 1996, when the cities of Livermore and Pleasanton entered into a Joint Powers Agreement to provide fire services to the respective cities, it was decided that the Livermore Police Department would provide the dispatch service to the LPFD. At that time, the LPFD was responding to 6367 incidents per year utilizing ten fire companies. In 2011, the LPFD responded to over 10,000 calls for service utilizing ten fire companies. In addition to the increased call volume, building construction types, building content types, and OSHA mandates have lead to a greater number of fire personnel needed to effectively mitigate incidents in a safe and legal manner. In an effort to manage the increasing staffing demands, regional fire agencies, the LPFD included, have partnered with their neighboring jurisdictions to provide aid to each other, thus preserving service levels. While we and our partner agencies have already engaged in such agreements, and responses, a limitation to their effectiveness has long been the lack of common dispatch communications. In the current model, the closest available unit to a fire or medical emergency may not be dispatched as our agencies lack the ability to dispatch each other, or even know each other's unit availability. DISCUSSION Alameda County Regional Communications Center ACRECC is a multi-agency fire and EMS specific communications center located in Livermore, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. ACRECC dispatches, and thus has common communications and direct resource status knowledge of the following agencies: Alameda City Fire Department, Alameda County Fire Department (covering Berkeley National Laboratory, Castro Valley, Dublin, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Newark, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Union City, and unincorporated Alameda County), Camp Parks Fire Department, Fremont Fire Department, and Paramedics Plus. Berkeley, Hayward, Livermore-Pleasanton and Oakland are the only sizeable fire departments in Alameda County that are not presently dispatched by ACRECC. ACRECC is also the Region 2 Mutual Aid Coordinator. This allows for seamless fulfillment of mutual aid requests in large size incidents both locally and statewide. In the event of a large scale emergency, agencies dispatched by ACRE:CC can receive assistance from a single point of contact decreasing time delays inherent communications across multiple dispatch centers. ACRECC plans to move to the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority (EBRCSA) in late 2012 to maintain and improve regional interoperability. ACRECC currently dispatches approximately 150,000 fire department and EMS calls per year. Their minimum day time staffing is 8 dispatchers, and night time 7. They have 9 dispatch console positions in their communications center. In the event of a large incident they are able to dedicate a dispatcher to that incident. ACRECC answers incoming emergency calls within 10 seconds of receipt 97% of the time. They dispatch calls within 60 seconds 93% of the time. ACRECC provides Emergency Medical Page 2 of 4