We want fire chiefs to know what we have done regarding inventory in a community and they can use it for their own planning. We give them a calculation, number of gallons per minute needed at that building to fight a fire; the water department would want to know because that is how we would compare the amount of water that would be needed at the street or hydrant level to combat a fire in that building and also for preplanning purposes. We don't warrant it as a preplan, but it's a very good start from the fire perspective on how that building was built and its likelihood of withstanding a fire with its construction and type: frame building, masonry, roof construction, occupants and the like.

How often do you re-certify a fire department's ISO rating?

We verify and validate all the information that we collect with our field representatives. The classification is established and then we maintain an updated or current-as-possible status and make a determination of a physical return to the community on the basis of the response to the Outreach program.

Whether a community would receive a visit sooner rather than later depends on how much change has occurred in that community. Community response is compared to our baseline information — if a community has built and added fire stations; added staffing or annexed an adjoining area; changed the nature or complexion of a community; added fire hydrants or hauled water operation, tankers and tanker relays. If there's a substantial enough change to trigger a revisit to the community, we notify the community ahead of time. We provide them with information as to what we're going to be talking about. We can also respond to a community on the basis of a request and as long as there's a substantial enough change or other factors that tell us it's a good idea to go back. We also go back on the basis of a request from an insurer who is interested in this area. It's a constant process of evaluation and taking updated information.

In addition to those field representatives, we also have an office-based staff in three locations: Chicago; Marlton, N.J.; and Austin, Texas — all of those folks and another close to 100 people helping assess, gather, update and otherwise support field operations in information collection.

Obviously, there is an advantage to advise ISO when items would improve a fire department's rating, but what about the opposite? How many departments notify you of changes in staffing, SOPs or water problems?

We are looking for a high response to the outreach program; when we don't receive a response, it doesn't mean we're not following up. On our own, we proactively contact communities … where we believe change is occurring or possibly update the activities that we would need to know and re-evaluate.

The process is one that we are aggressive; we reach out proactively to approximately 15,000 fire departments a year ourselves.

With 46,000 classified departments and only 90 field representatives focusing on fire, how do you “proactively” reach 15,000 departments a year?

…[T]he balance of our activity in terms of getting updated information, whether it is by speaking directly to water officials, fire officials, just in terms of the interaction we have, it's not just on the ground; it's intake of outreach responses.

We also monitor press clippings. We have an electronic clipping service where we are constantly looking for keywords and are in touch with communities in terms of changes that are occurring. It's a large effort, but would we warrant that we know where every fire hydrant change has been or fire station change or fire department change has occurred? No. Do we warrant that we are aggressively seeking that activity? Yes.

When we speak to fire chiefs, we want them to think of ISO as they add or change a station, as they add staff or add automatic aid agreements, or new water is made available that positively affects their community.

We also have a retro-aggression policy procedure with a community, where we outline to a community where there may have been changes compared to their previous classification and the possible loss of a class. We give them time, usually several weeks, to review our findings, respond back to us and give us an indication to regain their class prior to it becoming effective. We see a lot of improvements that are made where those communities may have come up short. We have approximately 150 of those communities at any time of the year and many are satisfactorily resolved.

Is that through an onsite visit?

Yes. We are in the verification and validation business and have a high degree of trust for public officials. It's not that we don't trust anyone, it's just that we are accountable to the regulators that approve our file schedules. We are accountable to the fire officials, community officials, to our customers and we also get a lot of media inquiries. Though ISO is involved in many different things with insurers, mortgage companies, health care analytics — our market is diverse — the core strength is still around the property casualty market and the highest media inquiries we get are the Fire Protection Classification Program.

Charleston was given an Class 1 department rating nine years ago, but the fire department assessment task force recently has issued 200 recommendations, including several critical operational items.

Charleston had responded to us with updated information since the time of their last physical evaluation. We have been in contact with the chief in Charleston and other city officials and we had advised the chief that although one fire is not going to change our process or our evaluation — because one fire can occur anywhere; that is tragic and that was certainly very tragic event — once the evaluation of what had occurred there is issued, we certainly will take a look at those. We would be in contact with Charleston anyway in terms of updating physically the changes that would have occurred in a growing community as in the case of Charleston.

We are considering a time limit on the rating, particularly in ISO 1.

An ISO 1 rating is frequently incorporated into logos and apparatus. Doesn't that create a false sense of confidence, as we've seen recently in Charleston?

We don't encourage that in fire departments. We have made contact with Charleston to go back in for a re-survey as soon as we can align it with the water department, communications and the fire chief.

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