Butler Township Fire Department Station 3 will host a community day Saturday at the fire department on Sparks Avenue to mark the last official action of a three station merger that began in 2013.

Starting at 2 p.m., the event will allow visitors see the station’s two new trucks and the official hosing-down of them. They also can try on fire gear and see fire safety reviews and demonstrations

Assistant Chief Dave Bestwick of Station 3 called the event “the cherry on top” of a years-long merger process that involved three fire districts in the township.

“Basically it’s the day we’re going to pass the torch,” he said.

Talks between the township’s five volunteer fire districts began in 2011, as the departments struggled with long-term equipment costs and flagging membership and participation.

Three stations — Lyndora, Greenwood Village and Meridian — decided they wanted to combine their equipment and manpower, and began a merger process in August of 2013. In January of 2014 the stations officially merged, became Station 3, and began selling off duplicate assets, such as the Greenwood Village fire station.

The departments would ultimately sell five trucks — two rescue trucks, two fire engines and a utility vehicle — and put the money toward two new vehicles, a fire engine and a rescue engine.

The combined cost of the two vehicles — which have upgraded thermal imaging and rescue equipment, and adaptable hardware that enables them to use compressed air foam from the department’s other vehicles — is nearly $1 million, Bestwick said.

Much of that cost was offset by the proceeds of equipment sales from the merger, Bestwick said, as well as savings because the merged departments did not have to replace aging communication equipment and breathing apparatus.

“There was a huge offset of costs there,” Bestwick said.

He said the merger also resulted in more efficient operations for the department overall. The merged departments have been able to increase the number of responders to each call-out, and response times in the township haven’t increased.

Bestwick called the result a success that came to pass because the station’s volunteers were willing to work together to ensure better public safety services for the township.

“This wasn’t something that was pushed on us,” Bestwick said. “We put our egos aside, sat down and said ‘how can we do this better.’”