Winter 2016

Winter 2016
Welcome to Community Fire Protection News...

Welcome to Community Fire Protection News, our online newsletter for the fire service, insurers, building officials, water professionals, and emergency responders. We provide concise and topical community mitigation and insurance news and more.

CFP News is a joint publication of Verisk Insurance Solutions and its ISO Community Hazard Mitigation business. In this issue, we focus on resilience, a vital topic for communities and municipalities looking to mitigate the effects of disasters, both natural and man-made. We start with an interview with Leslie Chapman-Henderson, the CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH®), in which we discuss the national movement toward resilience. In another article, we analyze the trends in building code adoption and enforcement, including improvements in the nation’s building codes as reflected in a ten-year review of our BCEGS® program. Guest reporter Jim Crawford talks about Vision 20/20, the plan for the future of the fire service. We highlight a fire station in Fort Lauderdale that was named the nation’s busiest and the San Antonio building department that achieved a BCEGS® classification of 1.

This issue includes many industry updates and insights. We hope you’ll find our latest information useful in your own efforts to keep people and property safe against fire and other catastrophes.

Robert L. Andrews
Vice President and Chief Field Operations Officer
Verisk Insurance Solutions

FLASH®: Fighting for safe homes

January 6, 2016

An interview with FLASH President and CEO Leslie Chapman-Henderson The Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH ® ) is the country’s leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and man-made disasters. FLASH collaborates with more than 100 innovative and diverse partners that share its vision of making America a more disaster-resistant nation, including...

Resilience: An American underdog story

By Jason G. Taylor
January 5, 2016

America loves a good underdog story. Maybe it’s because our country started out as one, or maybe it’s just human nature. Perhaps the iconic movie character who epitomizes the spirit of the underdog is Rocky Balboa from the Rocky movies. This undersized everyman fighter from working-class Philadelphia competed without the benefit of modern training or support and still achieved his full potentia...

Fort Lauderdale Fire Station 2: The nation’s busiest

By Tom Weber
January 4, 2016

L-R: Robert Andrews, vice president and chief field operations officer, Verisk Insurance Solutions – Underwriting; Bradley Bain, CFPS, vice president, ISO Community Hazard Mitigation; Tom Weber, national director, ISO Community Hazard Mitigation; and Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Chiefs Bob Hoecherl, Chantel Botting, and Jeff Lucas. For 35 years, Firehouse magazine has published an annual nationa...

San Antonio becomes first Texas community to earn BCEGS® Class 1

By Dale Thomure
January 3, 2016

Roderick J. Sanchez, AICP, CBO Director, Development Services Department In September 2016, the City of San Antonio became the first community in Texas to earn a classification of 1 from ISO Community Hazard Mitigation’s Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS ® ). After reviewing San Antonio’s Development Services Department (DSD), ISO was happy to acknowledge the department’s...

Vision 20/20: A plan for the future of the fire service

By Jim Crawford
January 2, 2016

It’s perhaps easier to explain what Vision 20/20 is by explaining what it’s not. It’s not an appointment with your optometrist. It’s not an organization. It’s a special project that grew out of a national planning process intended to create a vision of what fire safety, prevention, and protection efforts in the United States should look like in the year 2020. The title recognizes the fire...

Building codes show significant improvement in states participating in BCEGS®

By Dale Thomure
January 1, 2016

In February 2016, ISO Community Hazard Mitigation published our National Building Code Assessment Report , which provided a snapshot of the nation’s building codes. However, that moment in time doesn’t tell the whole story, so we created our National Building Code Analysis —an analysis of each state—and reported on the trends we identified. That analysis, released in October, was, quite frankly...

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ISO Fire Suppression Rating Schedule

Our Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) is free to chiefs and other fire officials. It's a manual containing the criteria Verisk uses in reviewing the fire prevention and fire suppression capabilities of individual communities or fire protection areas. To recieve a copy of the FSRS, contact our National Processing Center at 1-800-444-4554 and select Option 2.

H2O and Verisk

Water supply and distribution systems are important factors in determining a community’s ISO Public Protection Classification (PPC®). We provide complimentary educational training and seminars to water providers and associations throughout the country. Contact Hugh Gibson, national water resources manager, at hugh.gibson@verisk.com for more information.

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