Bethel Volunteer Fire Department to see lower ISO score

Hard work at the Bethel Volunteer Fire Department will pay off this spring.

After an October review, the Bethel department improved its Insurance Services Office rating. The change won’t take effect until April 1.

“We got a four,” said Bethel firefighter Scott Boyd. “It was five, and before that it was a seven.”

The department still has a split rating, with about a dozen homes in the Ridge Road area requiring firefighters to drive through North Carolina to serve. That small area keeps its 10 rating.

ISO ratings are used to help determine residential and commercial insurance costs. Chief Don Love said residents won’t see too significant a drop in rates, but businesses could.

“Once you hit five, you hit a big insurance reduction to residents,” Love said. “Below that, the biggest impact is to your business, your industrial sites and things like that.”

Actual rate impact varies by insurance provider. The last ISO review at Bethel came six or seven years ago. It wasn’t any one addition to the department since that led to the better score, but a combination of response times, firefighter training, equipment and other factors.

“It was overall,” Love said.

Billy Weatherford, director of fire safety in York County, said his group works closely with ISO scorers who are in a station somewhere on the Southeast every day. A largely volunteer department with an ISO in the 3 to 6 range is “doing really good,” he said. When evaluations may have come every decade or so to area departments, recent changes have ISO officials coming in half the time or less.

“They’re coming around more often now,” Weatherford said. “It keeps you on your toes.”

New rules the past several months have been adjustments for fire stations. One rule was, everything within a 5-mile radius of a station is given a certain score. Now, it’s anything within 5 driving miles of a station, shrinking the radius.

“It’s always changing,” Weatherford said. “Those changes really affect the fire departments.”

Improved ISO scores can range from great bookkeeping to good luck. Reviewers look at years of calls, response times, equipment and other factors. Some variables are beyond their control. If a rural department has several major calls near the station, at hours when volunteers are there waiting, the department will respond faster than it would to those same calls farther away while volunteers are working elsewhere.

“Sometimes it’s just fate,” Weatherford said.

Bethel has about 60 volunteers, and some paid staff. Department funding comes from a special tax district approved seven years ago. On Feb. 1, York County Council unanimously approved more than $38,000 for a stationary breathing air system for the department from that tax district money. Hoses also were replaced in the last year.

The county replaced a ladder truck, while Bethel upgraded a tanker and a service truck since the last ISO review, too.

Love isn’t sure when the next ISO review will come. He’s heard every three years now, or every five. It used to be, departments most often would initiate a new review when they were ready. Now reviewers could call in the next couple of years, with maybe two weeks notice before arriving.

“You’ve pretty much got to be ready,” Love said.

Eye on future

For now, the biggest issue the department faces is a still forming effort by some in Lake Wylie to incorporate.

“It’s definitely something we’re going to have to keep an eye on,” Love said.

The area being looked at includes two of Bethel’s three stations. It includes 90 percent of the special tax district, which wouldn’t be charged the same way if Lake Wylie becomes a town.

“It’s a big chunk of money these folks are going to have to replace one way or another,” Love said.

Bethel recently opened a new station with tax district money, which could be an issue if Lake Wylie incorporates around it. Of the 11 trucks at Bethel, the county owns seven and those “are the big ones,” Love said.

Bill Shanahan, at a recent information meeting on incorporation held by the Lake Wylie Chamber of Commerce, said there would be options for the department even if Lake Wylie becomes a town. The town could set up its own special tax district to operate the same way, or contract with Bethel.

Love isn’t necessarily against the idea, but wants his department considered within any final decision.

“There’s a good bit of talking that’s got to be done about that,” Love said. “It’s not that they incorporate and we just keep doing the same thing.”

York County has 18 fire districts, from city to rural and paid to volunteer. There are close to 600 volunteers. As of September, half of the departments in York County — some municipal, some rural — had an ISO score of 4 or better.

This story was originally published February 14, 2016 at 10:57 PM with the headline "Bethel Volunteer Fire Department to see lower ISO score."