South Toe Volunteer Fire & Rescue takes steps to save community funding during down economy

Chief Laws announces a successful inspection

Contrary to popular belief, the blue signs popping up all over the coverage area of the South Toe Volunteer Fire Department are not indicators of buffer areas. In fact the reason they are there is to help with an effort to save the community money. The department is embarking on a weeks long endeavor to try to better themselves and their North Carolina Response Rating System from the NC Department of Insurance which is based upon the Public Protection Classification system from the Insurance Services Office, Inc (ISO). Essentially these are grading systems for fire departments to help insurance companies determine risks associated with issuing homeowner’s insurance policies in certain areas. The better the rating, the more effective the fire department is at handling fires, which statistics reflect that this results in lower property loss amounts (in dollars). Since anyone that has a mortgage is required to have homeowner’s insurance, the premiums are adjusted based on the rating, so when a rating is lower then so are the premiums because the expectation is that there will be lower claims. A more complete explanation from ISO themselves: How the PPCTM Program Works (from www.isomitigation.com)

The PPCTM program provides important, up-to-date information about municipal fire-protection services throughout the country. ISO’s expert staff collects information about the quality of public fire protection in more than 44,000 fire districts across the United States. In each of those fire districts, ISO analyzes the relevant data and assigns a Public Protection Classification — a number from 1 to 10. Class 1 generally represents superior property fire protection, and Class 10 indicates that the area's fire-suppression program does not meet ISO’s minimum criteria.

Virtually all U.S. insurers of homes and business property use ISO’s Public Protection Classifications in calculating premiums. In general, the price of insurance in a community with a good PPC is substantially lower than in a community with a poor PPC, assuming all other factors are equal.

A community's PPC depends on:

• fire alarm and EOC communication systems, including EOC telephone systems, telephone lines, EOC staffing, and dispatching systems
• the fire department, including equipment, staffing, training, and geographic distribution of fire companies
• the water-supply system, including the condition and maintenance of hydrants, and a careful evaluation of the amount of available water compared with the amount needed to suppress fires

The last bullet point is worth 40% of the overall score, which makes perfect sense since it’s the water that puts the fire out” Barry Jones of South Toe explains. “If the department can’t get enough to the scene to handle the fire load, then more damage occurs”. In the typical rural areas such as South Toe’s district there aren’t a large quantity of fire hydrants like urban areas with more infrastructure will have, so it has to be brought in by fire service tankers. These trucks are designed to carry large quantities of water and unload it at a scene quickly so that they can be refilled and run another load back to the fireground. The larger the call the more tankers are needed because each one only carries 2000-3000 gallons and even on the average single family home fire the flows can vary from 500-1000 gallons per minute (gpm). With only 1 tanker making runs with a 10 minute round trip between dumping water into the holding ponds at the scene that means there isn’t any water for 6-8 minutes.

Currently the rating score for South Toe Fire & Rescue is a 9S which means that South Toe has never requested a lower insurance rating due to the lack of equipment and certified water points. The department’s goal is to drop that rating as much as possible in order to help save the community money and make the community safer. In addition to making numerous improvements in equipment and training over the past several years thanks to numerous state and federal grants, the department has also formalized mutual and automatic aid agreements with Newdale, Burnsville, and Parkway Fire Departments to bring their tankers when needed. More tankers will mean more water flowing more consistently. Since fires can happen anywhere and the best way to reduce round trip times is to have shorter distances, the signs will help the other departments’ drivers to find the closest spot to refill their tankers so they can get back to the scene. These operations are very resource intensive and involve dozens of people to run smoothly. They also take lots of practice to ensure that there are as few potential hang-ups as possible. Delays in establishing a water supply or breaks in the water supply from running out of water mean increased property loss and an increase in the risk of injuries or fatalities to both civilians and firefighters.

The inspection by NCDOI was conducted September 21st-24th of this year and Chief Tony Laws praises his departments and those who assisted. Chief Laws reports that everything that we had planned came to fruition and as a result we should be seeing much lower insurance rates in the next 30-60 days.


The goal of this process is to improve the rating as much as possible. Each number step lower averages a 7%-9% savings on insurance premiums for every home within 5 road miles of the fire station. Unfortunately homes outside of that distance will not be covered by the lower rating so no changes in premiums will occur, but based on site inspections and measurements there are very few homes within the South Toe Fire District outside of the 5 mile measurement.

"It definitely can be done," said South Toe Fire & Rescue Chief Mr. Tony Laws who has been the Chief of South Toe for last 8 years. "But we are not just doing it for ISO but to make the community a safer place to live."

"We have had a tremendous amount of support from the Federal Assistance to Firefighter Grant Program and that will help a fire department obtain much needed equipment,” stated Chief Laws. Surrounding fire departments that automatically respond to structure fires in the South Toe Fire District, a practice called automatic aid.

"South Toe wouldn't be able to achieve this if they had to do it on their own," Laws said.

The community support comes through donations from businesses and individuals, Laws said. The fire department has an extremely active fund raising committee that coordinates fund raisers throughout the year to raise money for special projects such as this. The South Toe Fire & Rescue has logged over 3900 volunteer hours for the year which is extremely significant for an all volunteer fire department. Also, every commercial building within the South Toe Fire District has been pre-planned again this year for the inspection. South Toe would like to thank each and every land owner and homeowners association for donations and permission to use their pond and streams as a fill sites in the event of an incident and training. Without the individuals of this township working together and allowing these activities this project would not even been able to get off the ground.


If you have any questions concerning the inspection please stop in or visit our web site www.southtoefire.com

COMPARISON OF INSURANCE PREMIUMS RELATIVE

TO ISO PUBLIC PROTECTION CLASSIFICATIONS

  This chart compares annual insurance premiums for a new brick veneer home valued at $150,000.00 with no credits and $250.00 deductible.  This report was provided by an actual agent in Harnett County.

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This page was last updated on Thursday, 12 November 2009 09:46 AM