Did you know Harvey County covers an area of 540 square miles? That’s about eight times larger than the size of Washington, D.C., or a third the size of the state of Rhode Island.
Although Harvey County is considered to be a small county in size, 540 square miles is a large area to cover when it comes to providing emergency services.
And here’s another little bit of information: There are 11 fire departments that serve portions of Harvey County.
Those fire department response areas range from as small as the six square miles in northeast Harvey County that the Peabody Fire Department serves, to the 102 square miles that Newton covers in the central area of Harvey County.
You might also like to know fire is the largest single cause of property loss in the United States.
Every 19 seconds, a fire department somewhere in the United States responds to a fire.
Every year, fires injure more than 20,000 people, and take the lives of more than 3,000.
Fire kills more Americans each year than all natural disasters combined.
One of the goals the fire departments of Harvey County have continually worked to improve is to enhance how they work together. That’s no different than organizing a large family picnic where each family needs to know what kind of side dish the other families are bringing.
With that knowledge, you can either anticipate that fantastic casserole dish Aunt Janice makes or avoid the one Uncle Dan puts together.
It’s no different when you bring together numerous fire departments. Each department has its own policies and procedures and their own equipment.
To have a successful ending, they all need to work together.
As early as 1988, there was an effort to organize resources from the various fire departments in Harvey County to create an automatic aid agreement that would put additional resources on scene of a rural structure fire. Early attempts were not successful for many reasons.
That campaign once again was initiated in 2002 with a renewed effort to improve insurance ratings in the rural areas of Harvey County, thereby reducing insurance costs in those same areas.
Even though a majority of the fingerprints on this project belong to a retired deputy fire chief by the name of Dean Davis, there were many people in the Harvey County fire departments who assisted in making this vision become reality, including Chief Jon Roberts of Burrton.
One of the insurance industry’s tools is the Public Protection Classification program from Insurance Services Office.
The PPC provides important information about fire protection services throughout the country. A community’s investment in fire protection is a proven and reliable predictor of future fire loss. Insurance companies use PPC information to help establish fair premiums for fire insurance, which generally offer lower premiums in communities with better protection.
In each community, ISO analyzes relevant data and assigns a PPC, which is a number from 1 to 10.
Class 1 represents exemplary fire protection, and Class 10 indicates the area’s fire suppression does not meet ISO’s minimum criteria.
In general, the price of fire insurance in a community with a good PPC is substantially lower than in a community with a poor PPC.
On average, communities with superior fire protection services, and therefore good PPC classifications, have lower fire losses than communities whose fire protection services are not as comprehensive.
The dollar value of a better PPC varies, but the cost of fire losses for homeowners’ policies in communities graded Class 9 is 65 percent higher than in communities graded Class 5.
The community PPC depends on three components:
1. Fire alarm and communications — including telephone systems, telephone lines, 911 staffing and dispatching systems. The fire alarm and communications component accounts for 10 percent of the total score.
2. The fire department — including equipment, staffing, training and geographic distribution of fire resources. The fire department component accounts for 50 percent of the total score.
3. The water supply system — including condition and maintenance of hydrants and evaluation of the amount of available water needed to suppress fires. The water supply system component accounts for 40 percent of the total score.
The campaign to improve insurance ratings in the rural areas of Harvey County has proven to be quite successful.
A majority of the fire departments in Harvey County recently organized an automatic aid agreement whereby each rural structure fire in Harvey County would automatically have multiple water tenders dispatched to provide the adequate water supply necessary to obtain an improved PPC.
All areas in Harvey County benefit from the automatic aid agreement, even if they don’t benefit from the improved PPC.
Some areas realized an improvement in their PPC from class 9 to class 7 or even a class 6.
So what does ISO’s Public Protection Classification do for you?
First, if a fire district improves its PPC, homeowners and businesses in the community often save money in their insurance premiums.
Secondly, a community with improved fire protection may find it easier to attract new business, increasing jobs and boosting the economy.
And, thirdly, ISO’s PPC program accurately measures the quality of public fire protection in your community.
The end result is an improvement in the fire protection for your family.
If you would like to know if you are directly affected by a change in your fire service provider’s PPC, contact your local fire department or your insurance provider for more information.
Gary Denny is chief of the Newton Fire/EMS Department.
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Did you know Harvey County covers an area of 540 square miles? That’s about eight times larger than the size of Washington, D.C., or a third the size of the state of Rhode Island.
Although Harvey County is considered to be a small county in size, 540 square miles is a large area to cover when it comes to providing emergency services.
And here’s another little bit of information: There are 11 fire departments that serve portions of Harvey County.
Those fire department response areas range from as small as the six square miles in northeast Harvey County that the Peabody Fire Department serves, to the 102 square miles that Newton covers in the central area of Harvey County.
You might also like to know fire is the largest single cause of property loss in the United States.
Every 19 seconds, a fire department somewhere in the United States responds to a fire.
Every year, fires injure more than 20,000 people, and take the lives of more than 3,000.
Fire kills more Americans each year than all natural disasters combined.
One of the goals the fire departments of Harvey County have continually worked to improve is to enhance how they work together. That’s no different than organizing a large family picnic where each family needs to know what kind of side dish the other families are bringing.
With that knowledge, you can either anticipate that fantastic casserole dish Aunt Janice makes or avoid the one Uncle Dan puts together.
It’s no different when you bring together numerous fire departments. Each department has its own policies and procedures and their own equipment.
To have a successful ending, they all need to work together.
As early as 1988, there was an effort to organize resources from the various fire departments in Harvey County to create an automatic aid agreement that would put additional resources on scene of a rural structure fire. Early attempts were not successful for many reasons.
That campaign once again was initiated in 2002 with a renewed effort to improve insurance ratings in the rural areas of Harvey County, thereby reducing insurance costs in those same areas.
Even though a majority of the fingerprints on this project belong to a retired deputy fire chief by the name of Dean Davis, there were many people in the Harvey County fire departments who assisted in making this vision become reality, including Chief Jon Roberts of Burrton.
One of the insurance industry’s tools is the Public Protection Classification program from Insurance Services Office.
The PPC provides important information about fire protection services throughout the country. A community’s investment in fire protection is a proven and reliable predictor of future fire loss. Insurance companies use PPC information to help establish fair premiums for fire insurance, which generally offer lower premiums in communities with better protection.
In each community, ISO analyzes relevant data and assigns a PPC, which is a number from 1 to 10.
Class 1 represents exemplary fire protection, and Class 10 indicates the area’s fire suppression does not meet ISO’s minimum criteria.
In general, the price of fire insurance in a community with a good PPC is substantially lower than in a community with a poor PPC.
On average, communities with superior fire protection services, and therefore good PPC classifications, have lower fire losses than communities whose fire protection services are not as comprehensive.
The dollar value of a better PPC varies, but the cost of fire losses for homeowners’ policies in communities graded Class 9 is 65 percent higher than in communities graded Class 5.
The community PPC depends on three components:
1. Fire alarm and communications — including telephone systems, telephone lines, 911 staffing and dispatching systems. The fire alarm and communications component accounts for 10 percent of the total score.
2. The fire department — including equipment, staffing, training and geographic distribution of fire resources. The fire department component accounts for 50 percent of the total score.
3. The water supply system — including condition and maintenance of hydrants and evaluation of the amount of available water needed to suppress fires. The water supply system component accounts for 40 percent of the total score.
The campaign to improve insurance ratings in the rural areas of Harvey County has proven to be quite successful.
A majority of the fire departments in Harvey County recently organized an automatic aid agreement whereby each rural structure fire in Harvey County would automatically have multiple water tenders dispatched to provide the adequate water supply necessary to obtain an improved PPC.
All areas in Harvey County benefit from the automatic aid agreement, even if they don’t benefit from the improved PPC.
Some areas realized an improvement in their PPC from class 9 to class 7 or even a class 6.
So what does ISO’s Public Protection Classification do for you?
First, if a fire district improves its PPC, homeowners and businesses in the community often save money in their insurance premiums.
Secondly, a community with improved fire protection may find it easier to attract new business, increasing jobs and boosting the economy.
And, thirdly, ISO’s PPC program accurately measures the quality of public fire protection in your community.
The end result is an improvement in the fire protection for your family.
If you would like to know if you are directly affected by a change in your fire service provider’s PPC, contact your local fire department or your insurance provider for more information.
Gary Denny is chief of the Newton Fire/EMS Department.
