WOLFTON - The Wolfton Volunteer Fire Department has recently made vast improvements in the fire service it provides to people in its district.

The most tangible evidence of this is the savings many home and business owners will see on their fire insurance premiums when the new ISO rating of 4 takes effect Aug. 1, thanks in part to a $191,000 vehicle acquisition grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Leonard Rice, Wolfton VFD Board of Directors chairman who has served on the board since it was reorganized by the Orangeburg County Fire Commission in early 2006, says the impact will be significant.

“For those in the new ISO rating area of our fire district, this will result in an average savings of 40 percent on homeowners’ insurance, and a number of people have already experienced a 50 percent reduction,” Rice said. “Our goal for the last two years has been to improve our ISO rating for the benefit of the people this fire station serves. Thanks to the volunteer firefighters here that invested hundreds of hours of their own time making equipment improvements, improving training and establishing an up-to-date record keeping system, the first part of that goal has been realized.”

“Our ISO rating had been a 9 for approximately 20 years prior to the board’s reorganization,” according to Assistant Chief Joel Redmond. “Even though we still have parts of our district that are still an ISO 9 rating, we’ll continue working to improve that.”

The lowest ISO rating of 10 is given to areas that have no fire coverage or new fire stations that haven’t yet received an ISO inspection.

Wolfton VFD Chief Andy Williams said a lot of effort went into preparation for the ISO inspection in February.

“Each commercial structure, including churches, had to have a fire pre-plan that identified recognized flaws,” Williams said. “We also performed an equipment inventory to see what we had and what additional equipment was needed. All of our firefighter training records were updated, the equipment was tested and the extent of pumped water flow verified, and all forms of documentation were brought up to ISO standards.”

The district has spent approximately $30,000 in the last two years to purchase needed additional fire fighting equipment for the station.

“This year, we also received a $1,775 grant from the South Carolina Forestry Commission,” Rice said. “We can apply for this grant on an annual basis, thereby giving us a greater opportunity to fund more equipment purchases.”

Williams also pointed out that one of the biggest requirements of the ISO was a review of water supplies available to the Wolfton Fire Department.

“The ISO 4 rating applies to those parts of our fire district that are within five miles of the station and within 1,000 feet of a water source,” he said. “The primary reason the remainder of the fire district is still designated with an ISO 9 rating is because we have a small rural water district (Bull Swamp) that doesn’t have many fire hydrants. However, in all fairness, at the time Bull Swamp was started, the biggest priority was getting water to residents, not installing fire hydrants.”

A new water tanker truck will be purchased with the Homeland Security grant. The tanker, which is expected to be delivered in October, will give Wolfton additional water source capacity.

“With the grant for the tanker, we can increase the amount of water we can bring to a fire scene from 1,500 gallons to 3,000 gallons,” Williams said. “The additional benefit is that the tanker can also act as a pumper, which will allow us to put our other pumper on a reserve status, resulting in additional points for a future ISO rating inspection.”

Although what the Wolfton VFD can do by itself to improve the remaining ISO 9 rating is limited, Williams said mutual aid agreements in place with the Pine Hill, North and Jamison VFDs in Orangeburg County and the Caw Caw VFD in Calhoun County will work to everyone’s benefit in the near future.

“Through our mutual aid agreements, we can add the water source capacity of the other departments’ tankers to our official documentation, thereby allowing the ISO rating of all the affected fire departments to be improved,” he said.

The boundaries of the Wolfton Fire District are from Kennerly Road to the Calhoun County line, and along U.S. 178 from Millwood Farms to SC 692.

T&D Correspondent Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at pmhsarata@aol.com.

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