County fire officials advocate for countywide fire safety rating
Greenwood County’s fire chiefs are seeking a change that could affect some people’s home insurance rates, and it’s part of a larger effort to improve the county’s firefighting services.
At Greenwood County Council’s Tuesday meeting, several county fire officials who represent the county’s fire advisory board will ask for council’s support in switching how communities are graded for fire safety. Instead of rating each fire district, the chiefs are asking for council’s support in getting a single, countywide fire rating.
People will have the opportunity to comment, as there will be a public hearing on the matter before council decides.
Fire ratingsCommunities receive a score from the Insurance Services Office, operated by risk assessment company Verisk Analytics, that grades the area on what fire protection properties have. The scale ranges from 1-10, with 1 being superior protection, while a community ranked 10 does not meet ISO’s standards.
In Greenwood County, each fire district is graded separately based on the stations that serve that community. Firefighter and fire advisory board member Paul Bagnoli said there are two factors that can severely harm a property’s ISO rating — if it’s more than 5 miles from a fire department and if it’s more than 1,000 feet from a source of water.
Many districts in Greenwood County have split ISO ratings depending on whether a property in the district meets both or only one of those criteria. If it meets neither, the property gets the worst rating and is considered unprotected, Bagnoli said.
As the county fire service strives to unify and provide better service across the county, part of the goal is eliminating split ratings. Part of the work to do that has been building new fire stations using Capital Project Sales Tax funds, while some of those funds have also helped purchase trucks and equipment needed to better respond to blazes.
Once all of the fire stations planned through 2022 have been built, Bagnoli said 99.6% of county residents will be within 5 miles of a fire station. Only 84 households will not, and Bagnoli laughed as he admitted his house would be among them.
The county also hired full-time and part-time firefighters to supplement the volunteer staff at each station, and these paid firefighters travel the county helping where they’re needed. The problem there, Bagnoli said, is that when the ISO checks to see if a fire district sends enough firefighters to a call, it only counts firefighters assigned to stations in that district.
The paid firefighters don’t count for ISO’s audits.
“If they randomly pull reports from a station and they didn’t put enough people from that station on a scene, it’s automatically marked a no-response, and the station goes to a 10 ISO rating for a year,” Bagnoli said. “If we go to a countywide ISO rating, everyone we put on a scene counts.”
Close to a countywide serviceA countywide ISO rating would reflect the unified approach Greenwood County’s firefighters have been taking. County Fire Chief Steve Holmes said they would be aiming for an ISO rating of 5, which he said is the rating other nearby counties earned when they switched to a county rating. He said there’s still work to be done to attain that score, but he’s confident it’s within reach.
“Going to a countywide ISO is a step in continuing toward our countywide goals,” said Franklin Cloninger, a firefighter who also serves on the county’s advisory board. “As volunteer organizations suffer across the board, this is our adjustment to the new world we’re living in.”
Cloninger said the aim isn’t to take autonomy away from stations but to further promote coordinated efforts. Increasingly, volunteer firefighters are able to pull equipment and resources from stations they don’t work at, thanks to greater cooperation between stations.
“We’re volunteers, we’re not all sitting at a station,” he said. “If I’m at my job and there’s a fire down the street, I can go to a new station that’s close by and be at that fire in a matter of a few minutes, rather than going to my station further away and getting there in several minutes.”
Despite still operating as independent fire stations, Holmes said Greenwood is closer than ever before to being a countywide, unified fire service in the way it operates. Most firefighters have access to other stations, and with more uniformity in equipment, firefighters can be comfortable driving a truck no matter what station it’s from.
“We still have our own identities, and there’s tradition we’re steeped in, but now everybody is moving forward together,” Cloninger said.
Insurance ratesThough each insurance company calculates rates differently, most companies use ISO ratings to assess the risk of fire damage to a property. Holmes said when a property is rated a 10 — the worst available score — homeowners can sometimes see their insurance premiums double from that factor alone.
Greenwood’s GIS map can show each fire district and its ISO rating, with much of the county ranking between 4-5. In the rural, southern parts of Greenwood County, however, districts spike up to 8, with part of Troy having a split 6/10 rating.
Some people, especially in areas ranked as less protected, will likely see an improvement in their ISO score under a countywide rating, Holmes said. That means residents in those areas might see their insurance costs drop.
In other areas that have been ranked as better protected, Holmes said there’s a chance homeowners will see a marginal increase in their rates.
The fire advisory council presented the recommendation for a countywide score to Greenwood County Council members behind closed doors a few weeks ago.
“It seems like we are almost to a point where if we don’t do something, things are going to get worse,” Chairman Steve Brown said.
Brown said the recommendation seems reasonable.
“I did not know this until the presentation, but they said ISO under the present setting does not give us any credit for full-time firefighters that we have hired at the county or our part-time firefighters,” Brown said.
Brown said he sees a countywide ISO rating as a way to make things better for the greatest number of people. Councilman Mark Allison agreed.
“I think if you look at the numbers, it’s going to make a drastic change for a large majority of the people in the county of Greenwood,” Allison said. “If it has any impact negatively at all, it will be very, very minimal.”
Allison said it will have a small negative impact for some areas but the overall result will help the entire county.
“I think we want to do what is in the best interest of everybody,” Allison said.
Allison said his district as well as Councilwoman Edith Childs’ district covers the rural area of southern Greenwood County.
“I’m for it,” Childs said.
She said the insurance rates people are paying in parts of her district are high, particularly in Troy.
“I think it has merit to look at and further discuss,” Greenwood County Manager Toby Chappell said.
Originally Published by Index-Journal on:Aug 16, 2020
By DAMIAN DOMINGUEZ and JAMES HICKS ddominguez@indexjournal.com jhicks@indexjournal.com