By Jeremy Gray
The Birmingham News
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Across Alabama’s largest metro area, hundreds of houses, apartments, businesses and churches have no protection from a fire department.
The buildings are in unincorporated parts of Jefferson and Shelby counties. Usually, those areas rely on volunteer fire departments, but some unincorporated areas are covered by no such volunteers.
In some cases, the unincorporated area is surrounded by a single municipality. For whatever reason, residents there choose not to annex into the city limits.
State Fire Marshal Ed Paulk said he is unable to estimate how many places in the state are not served by a fire department, but said such places exist all over Alabama.
In Shelby County, 430 addresses are not in a fire district, according to the county’s 911 service. Many are near the city of Pelham.
Because of department policy, Pelham firefighters will not respond to calls outside city limits in most cases, Fire Chief Gary Waters said.
“In my 30 years here, I’ve stood by and watched houses burn to the ground, and nobody wins in that situation,” he said.
Waters said he advises his firefighters to respond to calls if they are unsure whether it is in the city limits. “When in doubt, put it out. We’ll worry about where it is later.”
Inside Bessemer’s city limits exists a subdivision, Morgan Manor, where residents long ago decided they wanted to remain unincorporated.
Bobby Clayton, president of the Muscoda Improvement Association and a 45-year resident of Morgan Manor, said residents 16 years ago voted not to annex into Bessemer and will likely not do so any time soon.
“Most people just like it like it is,” Clayton said.
With some homes less than 500 feet from the city limits, Clayton said Bessemer firefighters often respond to calls in the community even though it is outside the fire district.
But Bessemer Fire Chief Paul Syx said the department will respond only to fire and medical calls in Morgan Manor if it can.
“If the timing’s right and we have an available unit, we’ll send them,” Syx said. “But we can’t guarantee it.”
If the department does respond, it can place people inside the Bessemer fire district in danger, Syx said. “If we send someone from the closest station, then that part of the city is unprotected right then.”
ISO ratings:
The Insurance Services Organization, a company based in Jersey City, N.J., provides ratings on a 10-point scale — with 1 being best — to determine the level of fire protection.
A spokesman for the company said places that have no fire protection would not receive an ISO rating. The ratings are often used to calculate the amount one pays for homeowners insurance.
According to a spokesman for Allstate Insurance, a home with an ISO rating of 9 — the worst rating a home can have and still be considered to have some level of fire protection — can require insurance premiums that are twice as much as the same dwelling with an ISO rating of 4.
A home with an ISO rating of 10, which Allstate considers to be unprotected, can require insurance premiums three times more than for a home with a rating of 4.
Columbiana Mayor Allan Lowe, an insurance agent, said some people resist annexation because they think it will increase their property taxes. However, they pay more for homeowner’s insurance because they have no fire department.
“By annexing into a city and getting their fire protection, it usually more than offsets what’d they pay in additional property taxes,” Lowe said of the lower insurance cost.
Trussville Fire Chief Russell Ledbetter said the city several years ago tried to persuade residents and business owners in nearby unincorporated areas, including a spot inhabited by a popular barbecue joint, to annex into the city. Most refused, he said.
The department frequently refuses to respond to calls in those areas, Ledbetter said.
Recently, a man suffered a serious cut to the hand and had someone drive him into the city limits to be treated by the fire department, rather than wait for a private ambulance to come from Birmingham and risk bleeding to death, Ledbetter said.
Placed in quandary:
“It puts us in a bad situation,” Ledbetter said, explaining that the department does not want to withhold services, but can’t afford to provide services to people who don’t pay for them.
In Hoover, residents who live outside the city limits, without the protection of a fire department but within five miles of a Hoover fire station, can pay a fee annually to be protected by the department, according to Fire Chief Tom Bradley.
According to Hoover’s finance department, 193 homeowners, including the owners of about four apartment complexes, pay the dues each year. The fees run from $100 for townhouses and apartments to $250 for houses.
But the scattering of businesses on several of Hoover’s busiest streets - Alabama 150, U.S. 31, and Lorna Road - that are in the unincorporated county and surrounded by the city limits must annex into Hoover to be guaranteed they will receive city fire services, Bradley said.
“In our eyes, they are unprotected,” Bradley said. “I’m not going to help them (the business owners) get cheaper insurance by guaranteeing we’ll respond.”
Yet Bradley concedes the department will answer calls from those businesses.
“We can’t sit here a half mile away and let a business burn.”
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