33-man department earns Class 1 rating
By Michelle Hillen
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
VAN BUREN COUNTY, Ark. — A Van Buren County fire department that started 10 years ago with a single 1962 pumper truck and a few volunteers has become the first Arkansas fire department to earn a top fireinsurance rating.
The Class 1 rating, awarded by New Jersey-based Insurance Services Office puts the 33-member Holley Mountain Airpark Volunteer Fire Department in a class with only 54 other fire departments in the country, according to the company. Insurance Services Office is a private company that rates more than 46,000 fire depart- ments in the nation for the insurance industry to help determine insurance rates.
“Holley Mountain Airpark is the first and the only Class 1 community in the state of Arkansas,” said Mike Waters, vice president of the Risk Decision Information Department of the Insurance Services Office.
The ratings range from 1 to 10, with 1 being the best, and are based on a department’s ability to extinguish structure fires. Departments are judged on a number of categories, including equipment, manpower and the local water supply.
Lower ratings mean lower fire insurance premiums and better fire protection.
“I think it is great,” said Fire Chief Jim Collom of the new rating. “We feel like a winning team.” The department, which provides coverage to the 33 residents of the 508-acre airpark, and mutual aid service to an adjacent 19-square-mile area, learned about the classification in July. But the rating won’t officially go into effect for insurance costs until Oct. 1, said Collom.
The end result will be a savings between 50 percent and 70 percent in insurance costs for homeowners, he said.
“It is substantial. That is probably the best way to put it,” said Collom, who, along with his wife JoAnn, founded the Holley Mountain Airpark, a residential community for aviators on top of Holley Mountain near Clinton.
Peter Muller, a resident of the airpark and a volunteer with the fire department, said the Class 1 rating is good news for his insurance bill, but more importantly, provides him peace of mind.
“How many people can say they have a fire department with so many people that we almost have more people on the fire department than we have living in the airpark?” Muller asked. “It’s just a nice feeling when you are living in the middle of the forest on top of a mountain.” Before the Holley Mountain department began, the nearest department to the airpark was Burnt Ridge Volunteer Fire Department in Shirley.
With the mountainous terrain in the area, response times for fires from that department to Holley Mountain could be as long as 45 minutes - a fact Collom said he learned the hard way.
“JoAnn and I had a fire in our house in 1996. We eventually got it put out with only $17,000 in damage ... but it took 45 minutes for the response time,” Collom said. “Right then, I saw the need. I actually said, I am going to buy a fire truck. I knew we needed it for our own protection.” His first purchase was the 1962 pumper truck. Over the years, the department has grown to include 33 volunteers and a fleet of seven fire-response vehicles.
To achieve the Class 1 rating, volunteers trained more than 10,000 hours over the course of two years, the department purchased several new vehicles, and the airpark developed a neighborhood water-delivery system, which includes a 190,000 water tank, Collom said.
It is very rare for any department, much less a rural department to achieve such a rating, said Charles Gangluff, program manager for the Rural Fire Protection Program, with the Arkansas Association of Resource Conservation & Development Councils.
The Rural Fire Protection Program holds workshops to teach rural departments how to lower their insurance ratings. Most departments who participate in the workshops are pleased to lower their ratings to a Class 4 or Class 5, Gangluff said.
In Arkansas, only eight communities, including Little Rock and North Little Rock, have achieved the Class 2 rating, according to Insurance Services Office.
But the Holley Mountain department decided from the start that they wanted to be the best, he said.
“They are an elite group,” Gangluff said. “They set a goal, and they have attained it. We are extremely proud of them. It is a testament to the volunteer fire service in Arkansas as far as I’m concerned.”
Copyright 2007 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.