Without help from Racine, Mount Pleasant's fire chief warns that some village residents could eventually face longer waits for emergency assistance.

As the village prepares to shuffle the locations of its fire stations, it's essential that the two governments work out an agreement to share fire services along their jagged border, William Bouma said. He heads the South Shore Consolidated Fire Department, the product of a merger between Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant's emergency services last month.

An automatic aid deal would allow the closest available personnel to respond to a life-threatening emergency, regardless of municipal boundaries. Dispatchers could automatically send workers from one of the stations in Racine to an address near the mutual border with Mount Pleasant, or vice versa. Currently each department must ask the other for help after the call comes in.

Automatic aid is still a priority, Bouma and Racine Fire Chief Steve Hansen agreed. They previously said they hoped to have a deal in place by the beginning of this year, but Bouma said that might have been rushing it. He hopes to get it done by mid-summer, after the kinks are worked out in the consolidation with Sturtevant.

"We want it to be seamless before we step into another one," he said.

Officials from the neighboring municipalities have discussed sharing resources for decades. Bouma said it will become more critical as Mount Pleasant rearranges the locations of its fire stations.

Besides the consolidation, two of Mount Pleasant's four stations will likely be gone in the next few years. With land for a new village complex waiting near West Lawn Memorial Park cemetery, officials are trying to sell the current Village Hall property, including the station at 6200 Durand Ave. The station at 3809 Sheridan Road, located in the Lake Park neighborhood south of the former Case foundry in Mount Pleasant, also will be closed.

The Village Board approved $2 million in this year's budget to buy land and begin plans for a new station somewhere between those two existing sites. A consultant's report recommended putting it near the intersection of Taylor Avenue and Meachem Road, although Bouma said that could be adjusted depending on what kind of agreement is reached with Racine. The plan concerns some Lake Park residents.

"I can't imagine them coming all the way across town," said Michelle Barkus, who lives a couple of blocks from the Sheridan Road station. "It scares me."

The 37-year-old recently called the rescue squad to help her off the floor after a back injury. Having the firefighters there eases her mind as a parent, too. Barkus said she'd be reluctant to let her children play in the park next to the station if help wasn't nearby.

"Now they're going to spread themselves too thin," she said.

Resident Dominick Lopez, 50, said Lake Park is already difficult enough to access. If the station is eventually relocated, he said Mount Pleasant vehicles will have to go out of their way to sidestep trains.

Hansen said personnel from Racine's station, 2102 16th St., could get to Lake Park in 4 minutes or so to begin treating a patient via the Durand Avenue underpass, which avoids train traffic. Details of an agreement still have to be worked out, but in Hansen's vision South Shore would then follow to transport the patient to the hospital if needed.

Resident Eric Ambrose, 37, hadn't heard about the plan to move the station. He knows the placement of stations will never please everyone, yet he's concerned about how the partnership between the two communities will shake out.

"That sounds like a good way to double-bill everything," he said.

According to a report by the McGrath Consulting Group, prepared as the villages studied consolidation, the Lake Park station handles only 6 percent of Mount Pleasant's fire calls. The Durand Avenue station, by contrast, handles 66 percent. Emergency call data were not included.

The future station might not have to cover the entire territory both of those currently do - that will depend on where the village finds the land. Either way, Bouma knows it won't be a sleepy atmosphere and Racine's help will be essential to cover the eastern part of the village.

"This is going to become a very busy station," he said.

The Racine City Council and Mount Pleasant Village Board would have to approve an automatic aid package.