FARMINGTON — Fire chiefs and town officials from across Franklin County have scheduled a second meeting to discuss ways to work more closely together.

The Morning Sentinel reported that the meeting scheduled for Oct. 29 is a follow-up to an April meeting at which the county’s fire departments discussed ideas for sharing resources and identified possible obstacles.

Chiefs were told after the meeting to come up with a list of their department’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as noting other issues.

At the first meeting, nearly 80 officials talked about problems, including aging firefighters, decreasing volunteerism, declining budgets and increasing training time.

Some ways departments could possibly work together include combining purchasing power, sharing a station and pooling resources to create a fire district that could cover several towns.