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ISO (Insurance Service Organization) judges the ability of fire departments to put out residential and commercial structure fires and establishes a rating scale from 1 to 10. One is the best rating and 10 is the worst rating. Many insurance companies use the rating of the ISO to determine the insurance rate for your property. Some insurance companies do their own rating but base them on criteria very similar to those used by the ISO. Regardless of how highly the fire department may otherwise be rated, if you are further than 5 road miles from a fire station, you are automatically given the worst rating.
If you are currently under the protection of a Fire District, you can obtain your ISO rating from them. If you are unsure if you are under protection of a fire district, you can access this information through the El Paso County Assessor’s office. From this internet site, enter your address or name and look in the box labeled “District” to see if a Fire Protection District is listed.
If you are not in a Fire Protection District, and a fire should occur at your property, fire suppression services from the closest fire department, and mutual aid from other nearby fire stations, will probably respond, although they will have no legal obligation to do so.
However, if you join a fire protection district and are greater than 5 road miles from their station, you will receive no benefit in reduced insurance rates but will still pay the full mil levy tax basis of that fire department. You should also be aware that once you join a Fire Protection District, you can not leave that District without their permission or by conducting a public election at a cost somewhere in the $5000 - $6000 range.
We expect to start construction on Station Two, at the corner of Black Forest and Hodgen Roads, by April of 2007, and be complete by February of 2008.
If you are not currently in a Fire Protection District and are within 5 miles of our new station, we would like to invite you to join our Fire Protection District. It will make a significant difference in your insurance premiums once the station is completed.
Petition Page 1 Petition Page 2 Petition Instructions
If you prefer, you can call us at 495-4300, and we will mail the petition forms and instructions to you.
If you have already joined a Fire Protection District other than Black Forest or Falcon, and are not within 5 road miles of their station, the process for switching is rather complicated and requires a release from that station or a community vote. Feel free to contact us for further assistance in that area.
