SHALOTTE – Three years ago, with the Grissettown Fire Department on the brink of bankruptcy, the department’s board of directors took a businesslike approach to turn it around.
Its efforts have resulted in significantly lower fire insurance rates for many residents and business owners in its 50-square-mile coverage area.
And the department continues to work on a program that could bring similar savings to the more rural areas it protects.
“It’s a dramatic turnaround,” said Sunset Beach businessman Denny Jordan, who helped direct changes in the department as a member of its board.
Randy Thompson, Brunswick County’s emergency services director, credits the turnaround to a business-minded board of directors that took control of the department after county commissioners dismissed the chief and disbanded the board three years ago.
“Each one of them stepped up to the challenge,” Thompson said.
The N.C. Department of Insurance lowered the fire insurance rating from 9 to 5 for the part of Grissettown’s coverage area that’s on a central water system. That will mean insurance rates that are 30 percent to 35 percent lower on average for residential customers, Jordan said.
The rating in more rural areas could drop from 9 to 6 once the department puts seven more dry hydrants in place that can draw on nearby ponds for water to fight fires.
Jordan, Brunswick County Commissioner Phil Norris and Grissettown Fire Chief Tal Grissett said what’s been done at the department should be a template for other rural Brunswick County volunteer fire departments.
Jordan said new directors and volunteers learned that the N.C. Department of Insurance rates communications, equipment, personnel and water supply in assessing local fire departments.
“We launched a program to document all our training, to make sure we had all the proper equipment and that all hydrants were ready to go when the inspectors came around,” he said.
The department got $150,000 in grants over three years. Together with money from the county’s fire fee and about $15,000 department members raise each year, Grissettown bought new equipment, properly outfitted each of its 23 volunteers, reviewed procedures with two elementary schools and worked with businesses to inventory things such as chemicals stored on site.
Thompson said the department still has goals it thinks will make it even better, including better facilities. Its current station is located on N.C. 904, about a mile from U.S. 17.
Jordan said when he first got involved with the department, creditors were calling asking for their piece of $60,000 in outstanding bills. The department paid those off and has instituted policies such as requiring two signatures on any check that make future malfeasance unlikely.
“I’m proud of this department,” said Grissett, who has been chief or acting chief for two years. “We’ve come such a long way in such a short time.”