Mercer fire ISO ratings improve

Sept. 27--PRINCETON -- Mercer County's fire departments recently showed improvement on a scale insurance companies use to measure the preparedness of local firefighters, making reduced fire insurance premiums a possibility for property owners, according to the Mercer County Commission.

On Dec. 19, 2014, the Mercer County Commission approved an amendment to the county's Fire Service Fee Ordinance to provide a fee based on the square footage of structures in the county. The ordinance's intent is to generate revenue to help defray the expenses associated with continuing, maintaining, improving, regulating and supervising the county's fire protection services.

Each volunteer fire department is evaluated by the Insurance Services Office (ISO), which classifies and rates the capabilities of more than 47,500 communities across the country. The ISO collects data about the quality of each communities' fire protection and then assigns it a number between one and 10, with Class 1 indicating superior fire protection and Class 10 showing that the community's property fire protection fails to meet minimum ISO criteria. The ISO rating is used by most insurance companies when they calculate their premiums.

Mercer County's ISO ratings have improved.

"Oh, yes, drastically. When we first started this fire fee ordinance, that was one of the biggest reasons why we started it, was to get the ISO ratings," County Commission President Gene Buckner said. "They have dropped considerably."

The fire fee helps because they can buy new equipment and send their firemen to training which cost a considerable amount of money. The state mandates that fire departments maintain their equipment and training for their firemen. And you've got to keep in mind all these firemen are volunteers. You've got to keep in mind that some of the people were paying for their own training, which is very expensive. And they were taking time away from their jobs to do this. They're very dedicated people. This helps them keep up with everything that the state mandates."

Local volunteer fire departments showed the following changes to their ISO ratings: Athens went from Class 4 to a Class between 4 and 5; Bluestone Valley climbed from Class 6 to over Class 5; Bluewell VFD rose from Class 6 to 5; Bramwell VFD rose from Class 7 to Class 5; East River VFD went from Class 4 to a point between Class 4 and 5; Green Valley-Glenwood VFD rose from Class 6 to 5; Matoaka VFD went from Class 7 to 6; Montcalm VFD went from Class 5 to a point between Class 5 and 6; and Oakvale VFD rose from Class 9 to over Class 5.

-- Contact Greg Jordan at [email protected]

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