Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Mike Brubaker wants to keep homeowners insurance as low as possible and that will likely mean some changes and improvements for the fire service.
During Monday night’s regular meeting of the Warsaw Common Council, Brubaker presented the 1995 and 2005 ISO ratings for the department. Insurance Service Office ratings are determined by a number of factors including water sources available for fire departments, dispatch call center operations and the equipment of the fire service and training of the firefighters.
In 1995, the ISO rating for the city was a class 6 on a scale of 10 classes with 10 being the worst. For the township it was 9. In 2005, the ISO ratings jumped to a class 4 for the city and but fell to a class 8 for the township. “And we barely squeaked into a class 4,” Brubaker noted of the city’s ranking.
“I’m not looking for a miracle, I’m just hoping we don’t bump to a 5 and see a 10 percent increase on homeowners insurance,” Brubaker told the council. “If we don’t make some changes, we could have problems that would affect a lot of people … I’m not looking for a 1 or 2, I’m looking to maintain.”
The WWFT recently contracted with R.W. Bassett & Associates to study the fire service and make an educated guess at what the next ISO rating could be based on all current operations. “There’s something called a divergence factor,” Brubaker said, explaining it is basically a comparison of all factors in determining the ISO rating. “I’m afraid we’re going to be the divergence factor.”
What could help the rating system is the completion of Station 3 to the south of the city. Brubaker addressed the council saying, “We’re working diligently to get that done.” the Bassett study also identifies the possibility of phasing out Station 1 and adding a new station to the north of the city where both commercial and residential growth is booming.
Other issues that will come into play are the number of firefighters and the hours of continued training.
Since Brubaker took over as chief, he has made it a priority to increase training among the firefighters, but in 2005 the ISO ratings awarded Warsaw just 1.80 credits out of 9 possible credits for training.
Another area where Brubaker fears the department may suffer in the rankings is with the number of firefighters. At any given time, the most firefighters on duty is 9 and the minimum is 6. Again, in the last ISO rating, Warsaw earned 6.40 credits out of a possible 15+ for staffing numbers.
Ideally, Brubaker would like to add one full-time firefighter for each of the three shifts. He did note that the volunteer numbers are up adding, “We had a huge influx of applicants … it’s phenomenal the number of people who want to volunteer.”
The problem with a lack of full-time manpower, however, comes into play when the department’s maximum of 9 firefighters are on the scene of a fire or accident and they are requested at another event. “We have to look at covering multiple incidents at once.” Brubaker told the council, “Before you can make a good decision, you have to know what happens in our world.”
Since budget discussions began last year, Brubaker has been asking for the addition of three full-time firefighters for the department. Although the common council denied that initially, councilman Jeff Grose responded to the Bassett report last night saying, “It’s for us to determine what the burden will be, but this helps identify short term and long term and this is great.”
The council took no action on the Bassett study. Brubaker presented it to them asking each council member to read through it, contact him with questions, and bring it back for discussion at a future meeting.