Fire Companies Pour It On At Weekend Drill

By Kaaren Valenta

Twelve fire companies from Newtown and surrounding towns pumped 285,000 gallons of water in three hours at the Curtis Corporate Park in Sandy Hook Sunday in a drill aimed at reducing the costs that homeowners pay for fire insurance.

“We are working to improve the town’s ISO [Insurance Service Organization] rating,” explained Michael Burton, captain of the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company and coordinator of the drill.

Mr Burton said 40 percent of the town’s ISO rating is based on how much water it can supply quickly and efficiently at a fire. ISO ratings are used by insurance companies to calculate homeowner insurance costs.

“We were able to maintain 1,450 gallons per minute for one and a half hours,” Mr Burton said.

  Firefighters from Sandy Hook, Hook & Ladder, Hawleyville, Botsford, Brookfield Center, Southbury, Woodbury, White Hills in Shelton, Stevenson, Monroe, Quaker Farms in Oxford, and Mill Plain in Danbury participated in the drill.

Working with militarylike precision in a shuttle relay, firefighters filled 14 tankers at three sites: on Trades Lane at Fairfield Hills, at the Sandy Hook Firehouse on Riverside Road, and at Warner Pond on Old Mill Road, and drove them to the industrial park on Toddy Hill Road where the tankers were emptied into six portable water tanks, called ponds.  Aerial platform trucks from Hook & Ladder and Monroe drafted the water and sprayed it across an undeveloped area at the rear of the property.

The drill helped the companies train for large-scale emergencies such as fire in an industrial park or lumberyard. Because most fire companies are staffed by volunteer firefighters, the drill was held on a Sunday morning.

Fire Marshal Bill Halstead said the drill was a practice session for a documented ISO test that could be held in the spring.

“There also is all kinds of paperwork that has to be done,” he explained. “Reports have to be filed about the fire companies and their responsibilities, the hydrant system, the town’s fire suppression tanks — everything has to be documented. We are working on that now.”

Captain Burton said he was pleased with the results of the drill.

“We had a good turnout and it worked out very well,” he said.