Departments need funds before fires

Posted: Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:04 pm

By DONNA RYDER
Associate Editor
Quicker response time. No checking a list. Everybody covered. Those are the things firefighters in Obion County want, but Obion County commissioners have not delivered, to date.
Currently, Obion County has no county fire department, even though a majority of the fire calls in the county are outside municipalities. None of the property taxes paid to Obion County goes to the eight municipal fire departments.
Three of the municipal departments (Union City, South Fulton and Kenton) respond to rural fire calls based on their own individual subscription plans. The remaining five (Hornbeak, Samburg, Troy, Rives and Obion) respond and hope the $500 fee they charge is paid by the homeowner or his insurance company, but most times it isn’t. In fact, fire chiefs in Troy and Hornbeak report that their departments end up writing off half of the calls made to the rural areas because the homeowner never pays. Samburg has it worse, where only 30 percent of the rural call fee is paid. Departments responding mutual aid don’t even charge the fee; that privilege is reserved for the department which received the initial call.
“Hornbeak attempts to collect $500 per response for the rural fire call, and we collect around 50 percent of the fees. Some insurance companies forward the check for our fire call to the property owner and we never see the money,” Hornbeak Fire Chief Bob Reavis said.
“The Town of Hornbeak has written off approximately $10,775 in unpaid fire calls over the past few years. In fact, our rural fire call fee collections were so bad that we hired a professional billing and collection agency to attempt to get our collections percentages up to an acceptable level.”
Outraged Americans from outside the state who watched national news stories about the Cranick home burning to the ground last month when South Fulton Fire Department could not respond because the Cranicks had not paid their subscription fee have suggested to The Messenger that the departments could charge out-of-town non-subscribers the total cost of the fire — even if it is in the thousands of dollars — and if the bill is not paid, the town could then place a lien on the property. But this won’t work, according to Union City Fire Chief Kelly Edmison, whose department charges a $75 a year subscription fee for rural customers and a $500 fire call charge if the department has to respond.
“Fire budgets are relatively steady and fixed. Fires are not. If there were 10 fires this year, each fire would cost less than if there were five fires. We are not in the real estate business and don’t want their property,” Edmison said. If the structure is damaged enough, the resident would not pay the bill, the city would acquire the property after non payment. The city would be out more expense to demolish the building. The city could not sell the property for the money invested and the fire department would eventually lose money and have to stop responses or the city taxpayers would foot the bill,” Edmison said.
“It’s not always the property owner making the decision that he wants a fire department to respond. Lots of times, it’s someone driving by with a cell phone,“ Troy Fire Chief Mark Watson said. “Had the owner been asked, he may not have wanted the fire department to respond. Would it be right to charge someone that didn’t want the service?” he asked.
It’s bad enough that most rural residents don’t pay the $500 fee; but what’s worse is that fee isn’t even a drop in the bucket to what it costs to actually run the fire call.
Before a firefighter steps one foot toward fighting a fire, he must be outfitted. He must have such things as special boots, a fire-retardant coat, a helmet, a self-contained breathing apparatus and a state-mandated safety vest. He must also have a radio, for which the batteries cost at least $75 each, according to Rives Fire Chief David Kendall. Just for equipping 15 firefighters, that’s $1,125 a year. That’s a tough “bill” to swallow for the Rives department, which receives very little funding and makes most of its money from the sales at a soft drink machine. The nine-volt batteries for the SCBAs are $100 each and must be replaced once a year, he added.
Even small rural fire departments are required to follow state and federal mandated requirements that include, but are not limited to, personal protection gear, fire trucks, training, record keeping and disaster planning.
“Recently the State of Tennessee passed new training requirements that include 16 hours of basic introduction to firefighting and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA 1001) 64 hour basic firefighting training,” Reavis said, adding that, according to the National Volunteer Fire Council, it costs about $7,400 to train and equip a firefighter, paid or volunteer. Of that amount, an average of $1,000 is spent on training.
Add to that the cost of the trucks — which cost between $200,000 and $300,000 or more — the fuel to run them, the insurance on them and the maintenance which must be performed to make sure they keep running. Then, there’s the cost of the fire hoses and nozzles that go on the truck, as well as the building to house the trucks and the electric, phone, natural gas and water bills.
“It’s not just the annual operational cost of responding to the call. There is a tremendous liability every time we respond to a fire,” Watson said, adding “For example, we paid $132,000 for Engine 3. If this truck was wrecked responding to a fire and damaged beyond repair, the insurance will pay for the value of the vehicle — not the replacement cost. The current value of Engine 3 is about $50,000 for the truck and it will cost $300,000 to actually replace the vehicle. The same would be true if something drastic happened at the fire scene and destroyed the equipment. We normally respond to a structural fire with $400,000 to $500,000 worth of equipment. Every dollar’s worth of this equipment is at risk of loss until it returns to the station.”
So, just what do the fire chiefs want?
“As you can see, rural firefighting is not a money-making proposition; in fact, it is a money-losing situation for most towns and cities. We can no longer offer this service on an ‘as needed’ basis. Rural property owners should understand that the question being asked is not, ‘Do you want to pay your share?’ but rather, ‘By what means do you want to pay your share?’ We need your help financially to be able to continue to provide rural fire protection to you and your family,” Reavis said.
“Some folks don’t understand why we need to tax or fee the rural homeowner in advance of needing the services of a fire department. Well, you wouldn’t want me to try to put together a fire department from scratch when you needed our services, would you? You wouldn’t want me to try to train and equip the firefighters responding to your fire at the moment you called, would you? We have expenses that continue every day of every week, all year long, even if you aren’t necessarily needing the fire departments services at the moment,” he said.
Kenton Fire Chief Ed Sims said, “People need to understand that the cities have fire departments for their residents, and those residents pay city taxes for the service. If the residents of the county want fire service, they are going to have to pay, either through the subscription service or a tax. Either way the small towns no longer are able to shoulder the burden of providing fire service to their surrounding areas.”
“I think one of the greatest needs in fire service today is an Obion County Fire Department,” Watson said. “The fire chiefs in Obion County spent two years developing a comprehensive plan that would consolidate the eight municipal departments that are already equipped and organize them into a county fire department under a contractual agreement. That plan was presented to the county commission in 2008. The commission turned the plan down and directed the departments to establish a subscription service to provide rural fire protection.
“Subscription service is a business model that was invented to deliver magazines and newspapers — not emergency services. However, there are rural fire protection programs across the United States that operate using the subscription service business model. In fact, there are three subscription programs already operating in Obion County. These type programs require a great deal of administration each year, sending bills out and collecting them, and they require that each property owner send in a payment each year in order to be protected.
“In the past couple of weeks, I think we’ve all seen the devastating shortfalls of a subscription service program. The Cranicks’ family home was destroyed by fire because they forgot to renew the $75 subscription fee. Was it their fault or a fault of the subscription-based system they were forced to use?” Watson asked.
“If you wakeup in the middle of the night and your house is on fire, you need help. Help should not be contingent on whether you remembered to pay your subscription or not. Help should not be delayed while dispatchers are trying to determine if you are a subscriber or not. Help should be immediately dispatched, as expeditiously as possible. The person needing help should not be reduced to standing in their yard wondering if someone is coming, or worse, lying in their burning home wondering.
“Now is the time to organize an Obion County Fire Department that will provide rural fire protection services for all of Obion County. Eight existing municipal fire departments stand ready to assist in that endeavor. There are eight existing fire stations, 27 fire trucks and over 200 trained firemen ready for the call to duty. Rural fire service has been on the agenda in this county for 25 years. Now is the time to resolve the issue.”
Reavis said, “Speaking to you, the rural homeowner, I ask you to please think about my fire department’s situation. Be willing to pay your fair share so that we can continue to help you. The countywide rural subscription program being proposed by our county leaders is not the answer to the rural fire problem, but will, rather dramatically, increase the amount of fires in the county just like the Cranick family experienced. No matter who was at fault for the Cranick fire, the aftermath always ends in some firefighters lap and it’s going to end up in some volunteer firefighters lap if the rural subscription program is expanded. We didn’t volunteer to decide whose house gets fire service and whose is allowed to burn. We volunteer to make a difference and, hopefully, help a neighbor in need. I ask you to voice your concerns to your county mayor and county commissioners and be a part of much-needed change in your fire service delivery.”
The county commission meets Monday at 9 a.m. at the Obion County Courthouse and is expected to vote on the rural fire protection agreement at that time.
Associate Editor Donna Ryder can be contacted by e-mail at dryder@ucmessenger.com.

Published in The Messenger 10.14.10