Cloverdale firefighters take on test

For a rural fire district, one number looms large. That's the ISO rating - the rating number by which the insurance industry measures fire risk. The amount the district's resident pay for fire insurance depends on getting the best number possible.

Last weekend, the Cloverdale Rural Fire Protection District faced a test that will determine whether they can hold onto their ISO 6 rating (ISO 1 being best; ISO 10 being worst).

Maintaining a strong ISO rating is getting tougher and tougher out in the country, according to Fire Chief Thad Olson. In recent years, wildfires in rural areas across the United States have brought structure loss and changed the way the insurance industry calculates risk. That poses a big challenge for rural district's like Cloverdale, where there are almost no fire hydrants and reserve equipment is not in the budget.

Actual performance of the fire department is not the major part of a district's score. If it was, the Cloverdale district would be sitting pretty.

"In the past year and a half, we've had three house fires - and we've saved everything," Olson said.

Instead, the score is heavily based on infrastructure, equipment and staffing - water flows, hydrants, reserve equipment, speed and efficiency of dispatch and proportion of at-station paid staff.

All of those considerations stack the deck against the district, no matter how good its firefighters - mostly volunteers - are at fighting fire.

With a tax rate of $1.09 per $1,000, the lowest for any district in the county, Cloverdale doesn't collect enough to fund major equipment purchases, although the district did upgrade trucks through a loan.

And the district doesn't have hydrants, which knocks about 40 percent off their score right off the top.

"We're doing the best we can with the rules they've set against us," Olson said.

Rating methodology aside, Olson is very confident in his department's capabilities.

"I guarantee you today we are better off and have more capabilities than we did three years ago," he said.

The district firefighters did very well on last weekend's test, which focused on how long it takes to get water to a fire, pumped into and out of vehicles and storage tanks, the deployment of hoses the like.

"We've practiced this for the past seven months," Olson said. "Our times were 15 percent better than they've been through our whole training. I couldn't be prouder of the people."

The outcome is uncertain. It'll take six months for the rating to come out and there is an appeal period following that, if the district feels the need to challenge findings.

"How they rate is yet to be determined," Olson said. "I'm hopeful that we'll be able to maintain a 6. We'll stay a 6 for the time being, but the deck is kind of stacked against us."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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