MOULTRIE — Building owners within the City of Moultrie — residential, business and industrial — may see a decrease on the fire protection portion of their insurance once the Moultrie Fire Department’s new burn building is set up.

City Manager Pete Dillard proposed the purchase to Moultrie City Council, and it was approved at the March 5 meeting.

“The primary objective is bringing the city’s ISO rating from a three up to a two,” said Dillard. “With our hydrant program, updated equipment and training programs we are pretty well set with everything else — this is the key component we have been missing.”

ISO — Insurance Service Office — ratings are given by an independent, for-profit organization that scores fire departments on their ability to handle emergencies. That score is then used to assist with determining property insurance costs.

Ratings are given on a scale of 1-10, with one being the best and 10 being the worst.

The City of Moultrie has been at a three for over 20 years. The county outside the city limits is currently a five.

}“Without the burn building there is no chance of ever being able to move up an ISO rating,” said Fire Chief Chad Kilgore. “With the burn building there is a really good chance we can make it happen.”

Requiring a certain number of fires be extinguished per year to qualify for each ISO rating is what’s holding Moultrie back.

Currently, the MFD averages 35 fires a year.

“Simply put, we just don’t put out enough fires,” said Dillard. “Which is great for the community; but, it simply doesn’t allow us to get the numbers needed to qualify for the next ISO rating.”

}Installing a burn building will fill that gap because each time the structure is used for training purposes it will be another peg toward that required number.

“The goal is to have property owners see those decreases on insurance costs within a few years,” said Dillard. “But, even after waiting for the installation and getting those training hours in, everything still depends on what ISO says.”

WHP Trainingtowers of Grandview, Missouri — the company the structure is being ordered through — has estimated 8-10 months for the delivery window.

“The burn buildings are made-to-order,” said Kilgore. “Plus, the company does some of the work at their warehouse before traveling to install it.”

Once it arrives, the home of Moultrie’s new burn building will be Fire Station 2 on West Boulevard.

“What is there now is going to come down — the current training structure,” said Kilgore. “We will also have to clear some trees, remove the stumps and prepare a concrete slab for the building before installation.”

After the initial training, the plan is to use the structure on a near daily basis.

}“This building is going to allow us to train in ways we never have been able to before,” said Kilgore. “In addition to being able to give those real-world scenarios, the building has a sprinkler system we can tap into, which is something we’ve never been able to do during training before.”

“A lot of people like the idea of being a firefighter,” said Dillard. “But, it’s scarier than you would think, walking into that heat and smoke. Even with all our current training and preparation, we won’t actually know what a person’s got until they are there.”

The building will have two burn rooms.

“One is on the first floor and the other is on the second,” said Kilgore. “You use wooden pallets, like at grocery or hardware store, and set two on the ground with three more sitting vertically on top — that’s what you light on fire.”

Because of the way the building is designed, residents in the surrounding neighborhoods don’t need to be concerned about smoke levels in the area rising or constantly seeing flames as they drive down the street.

“The building is made up of fire brick and has tile equivalent to a space shuttle that is designed to reflect heat so that you are able to ignite and extinguish fires over and over again,” said Kilgore. “The flames and smoke stay within the building and get vented out in a way where they will quickly dissipate.”

Additionally, the plan isn’t to use the burn rooms everyday.

“You honestly don’t want to put the firefighters in that heat and smoke every single day,” said Kilgore. “It would really wear on the body and then when an actual emergency comes they wouldn’t be at peak performance.”

So, what is the plan?

“We have smoke machines because it’s really that smoke you want rather than the fire,” said Kilgore. “In a real situation the smoke makes it so a dark that there is no visibility. You need that practice. Plus, there is a lot of training we can do at the building without using fire or smoke.”

In addition to being able to practice rappelling from 37 feet (four stories) up, adjusting to confined spaces and properly clearing a building, Moultrie firefighters will be able to learn how to find their way around unfamiliar locations.

“The space around the burn rooms use a peg system for the metal walls,” said Kilgore. “So, we will be able to reconfigure them as often as we would like to deter memorization of the floor plan; plus, it will allow us to set up different types of scenarios.”

Another unique aspect of this building is it doesn’t get as hot as a standard fire.

“Burn buildings get to be about 300-500 degrees,” said Kilgore. “An actual house fire gets to be around 700-900 degrees.”

This difference in temperature is used as an advantage in more than one way.

“Knowing how to properly put out a fire is very important,” said Kilgore. “Because yes, there is a right and wrong way.”

Because of the mixture of water with extremely hot temperatures steam is naturally created and one of the elements firefighters must consider is where that gets directed.

“It’s way better to be able to practice in a burn building because though you would definitely feel it if that steam touched you — and would probably get a welt — but that would be it,” said Kilgore. “In a real situation, that steam would peel the skin straight off.”

The other way in which lower temperatures will help with training is just that, they are lower temperatures.

“We want them to see home heat and smoke when training,” said Kilgore. “But, if it’s too hot to where they aren’t able to learn anything then it defeats the purpose.”

The purchase of this structure, which cost $493,143.00, was approved unanimously at the public City Council meeting on Tuesday, March 5, although council members Daniel Dunn of District 2, Post 5, and Wilma Hadley of District 3, Post 6, were not present.

Funds will be coming from the 2019 and 2025 SPLOST accounts.

“The sooner we get this burn building in place and get those trainings going, the sooner we can have ISO come out and do a new analysis so we can hopefully move from that three to a two,” said Dillard. “Then, we can get those property owners some savings on their insurance.”