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Fire Underwriters Survey
Verisk Canada's Fire Underwriters Survey™ (FUS), formerly an Opta service, now a Verisk business, is a national organization that provides data on public fire protection for fire insurance statistical work and underwriting purposes of subscribing insurance companies. Subscribers of Fire Underwriters Survey represent over 90 percent of the private sector property and casualty insurers in Canada. FUS works closely with fire departments across the country to ensure publication of the most accurate fire protection data.
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Risk Assessment
Municipal building stock details such as size, construction, exposures, occupancy, and fire protection systems, lay the foundation of a municipal risk assessment and determine the a community's fire hall, apparatus and staffing needs.
Fire Department
Areas reviewed in the Fire Department assessment include apparatus, distribution of companies, staffing, training, maintenance, pre-incident planning, etc.
Water Supply
Within a water system assessment for public fire protection, the major emphasis is placed upon it's ability to deliver adequate water to control major fires throughout the municipality on a relaible basis. What is ultimately available to the fire department is the critical test in the evaulation.
Fire Safety Control
The fire safety control assessment includes a review of all fire prevention activities including public education. The overall needs of these programs should be determined with the aim of reducing the number of fires within the community. All activities should be measured for their effectiveness.
A Geographic Information Systems Approach
In order to provide more accurate details on responding fire halls and hydrant protection, FUS began implementing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology in the Fire Insurance Grading Index in 2012. To date the following have been mapped into the Grading Index across Canada:
- Fire halls
- Fire Protection Areas and contract response areas
- Hydrant locations
- Civic addresses
- Road networks
- Legal boundaries
We continue to update this system to provide more accurate details on levels public fire protection for all addresses nationally. If you would like to ensure we have the most up to date details for your community please contact our GIS Department.