BURLINGTON — Commissioners for Fire District 6 unanimously approved a contract late Tuesday night that could keep the city of Burlington Fire Department and district fire department working together.

The City Council is scheduled to consider the same contract Thursday night.

Under the contract, both the city and the district, which surrounds Burlington north of the Skagit River, will continue responding into each other’s jurisdictions automatically.

That is the way they currently handle calls now, and have for decades, but the contract that outlined reimbursements for taking calls into the other’s jurisdiction expired March 31, and the City Council set July 1 as the deadline for either having a new contract in place or splitting up.

Negotiations to replace the expired contract started last year, or earlier, according to officials, but were halted by the district’s money troubles and other issues.

Commissioners for the district met for five hours Tuesday night, moving through their budget line by line.

Commission Chair Richard Whalen said by phone today that they identified enough savings to pay the city the $13,250 per month that is required under the contract they approved.

The contract, which was voted on at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, is largely identical to one drafted by Burlington City Attorney Scott Thomas. The biggest change made by the district actually appears to benefit the city without any additional cost to it.

The city and district currently respond automatically to each other’s calls, but that would have changed should both sides have agreed to the contract drafted by Thomas.

That contract required the city to respond automatically to calls originating in the district but not the reverse. The district would only be called to come to the city on a “mutual aid” basis.

Mutual aid, which is required for all jurisdictions in the county under a separate contract, means that the city would call on the district for help if it were under-equipped for an incident. Mutual aid assistance tends to be slower than automatic response because the group needing help usually does not ask for it until they reach the scene of an emergency.

Whalen said today that the district wants to continue responding automatically in the city because it is beneficial for the morale and safety of firefighters in both departments.

“Whatever we are doing right now is how we should leave it,” he said.

Burlington Mayor Ed Brunz was in Spokane today attending a the Association of Washington Cities Conference and had not seen the contract approved by the commissioners.

But he said if the contract remains largely similar to the one drafted earlier by Thomas, he supports it.

“I am hoping that the council will pass everything that (the district commission) did. I cannot say for them myself, but we were looking at giving them a pretty good deal,” Brunz said by phone.

• Elliott Wilson can be reached at 360-416-2147 or at .