BUTLER TWP — The township’s Mercer Road Volunteer Fire Department on Monday approved the first of two votes to merge with the township’s two other departments to form what would become the Butler Township Volunteer Fire District on Jan. 1.

The seven members of Mercer Road, also known as Fire District 6, unanimously voted in favor of a merger resolution.

Officers said they received word from Butler Township Volunteer Fire Department District 3 saying its members also approved the merger, but the South Butler Volunteer Fire Department District 7 hadn’t yet voted as of 9 p.m.

“All three stations are doing this together tonight,” Kevin Kelly, Mercer Road chief, told the members of his company.

Notice of the departments’ approval will be advertised for 30 days. The second and final vote will then be held, Kelly said.

If all three stations approve, the township commissioners will vote to accept and recognize the merger, he said.

The state fire commissioner would then have to approve the merger.

“The state recognizes the problem in the volunteer service,” Kelly said. “With the cooperation of everyone involved it’s going to be a good process.”

A shrinking number of people willing to volunteer has forced departments to merge to consolidate volunteers and resources, he said.

“Your volunteers are dwindling, but your calls aren’t dwindling,” Kelly said.

Merging will provide more assets to fight fires to better serve the community, he said.

A few years ago, the Meridian, Greenwood and Lyndora volunteer fire departments merged to form the Fire District 3, Kelly said.

Two resolutions were approved — one for the department and one for the department’s relief association.

Both resolutions state the members in good standing would become members of the new department and its relief association.

Assets, vehicle titles, liabilities and obligations and money due would be conveyed to the new department and relief association.

Relief associations receive funding from the state, which gets money from fees from fire insurance policies. That money can be spent only on safety equipment. The state audits that spending, Kelly said.

Fire departments receive some funding from taxes imposed by their municipalities. That money can be on utility bills, he said. The departments also hold fundraisers to generate money.

All three stations have been meeting about the merger in recent months and agreed on a chief and a slate of officers who will serve during 2019. In the fall, officers will be elected through a nomination process, Kelly said.

Each station will keep its trucks and equipment, but some could be moved to different stations and assigned different numbers in the fall after the number of calls and other information is analyzed, he said.

All three stations are designated as No. 2 by the county emergency dispatch service, but the new department will have to decide if it wants to keep that number or change to a double digit number. Kelly said that number comes into play when identifying individual firefighters at emergency scenes.