By Statute, what authority is responsible....?

[raventbk]

According to Florida Statutes, what authority is responsible for the establishment of fire departments?

As I understood things before, it is up to the County, or Municipality to establish the department along with its coverage area within the county/municipality. However, for some reason, I cannot locate this text any more.

Here's the beef:

I know of a department that has been established and in operation since 1993, but up until two years ago was a "sub station" of a neighboring dept due to lack of volunteers at the dept in question. Two years ago, this department had built up enough members, and was voted by the local ff association to become independent. The Chiefs of the neighboring departments met with this dept's Chief to work out new boundary lines, and that went well. The new tones have been coordinated and already been set up in dispatch, the maps and cad have already been updated, but havent been "switched on" just yet. This is where the issue is...

Dispatch refuses to "switch on" the new station in the cad as they're under the impression that ISO has to approve and establish the new station and set boundary lines themselves. As such, for the past couple years they've been dispatching a more distant station to scenes literally across the street from the station in question, with enroute times of over 10-15 minutes, when they could dispatch the closer station and be done with it.

I thought ISO was just a surveying organization to rate the effectiveness of a given department in a given area in order to approximate insurance rates for structures within that area. They give suggestions on how to improve, but however they are not an actual authority when it comes to station operations. Am I wrong?

[reebokHCFR]

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the fire marshall's office is your best resource.
http://www.fldfs.com/sfm/index.htm

[SWFLFFPM]

I could be wrong here, but here goes....

If you are within municipal boundaries (town, city etc) then they are responsible for fire protection.

If you are within a state created fire district then they are responsible.

In the absence of either of these, the county is responsible.

I never, ever heard of the ISO getting involved in this.

What county is this?

[LeatherHed4Life]

just know the territory, man the radio and go anyways

[Fokker416]

I think the best route is for the Department Chiefs effected by this to talk to the person that has authority over the dispatch center. This could be a fire chief, emergency management director, Sheriff, or whoever pays the dispatchers. This is a local issue. If this doesn't work, I'd say approach the City Council or County Commission, whichever is appropriate.

Example. I work for a city and we opened a new station. The dispatch center redrew the boundary lines for us and the outlying county station. The county fire chief got wind that we were running into the county a lot so he had the lines redrawn. Simple as that. When we annex (fairly often) the lines are redrawn on a regular basis.

[Firemedic 61]

ISO has nothing to do with this. Once you have a charter in place and are a recognized FD in Fla you can legally operate. You should have received a dept ID from the state for entering alarm reports. Boundaries, run cards, etc are set by the AHJ(authority having jurisdiction), which would be the municipality/county that your dept belongs to. ISO has no say in this, they just rate you. Your issue is with the local dispatch, sounds like a ****ing match to me.

[HCFR2009]

tell Jason to stop b s'ing around and get your tones put out for your calls and stop letting station 8 jump your calls they are not elite in anyway. who is the new chief at station 2 get in touch with him and see if he will help you out cause i recall we agreed on giving yall some of sta 2's area and 8 was supposed to do the same oh and tell mark to stand up and fight or they will get rid of him like they did me in station 2,stating my moral character was questionable yet i was one of the best ,most loyal and most reliable in the county so figure that out.

[owenscott]

When meeting with dispatch i would also casually mention that if the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and dispatch still does not tone out the correct station the liability will be ALL THEIRS. The big "L" sometimes prompts people to make the correct decision or at least allows them to explain why they cant do it.
Either way good luck on it.

[cubbie]

According to Florida Statutes, what authority is responsible for the establishment of fire departments?

As I understood things before, it is up to the County, or Municipality to establish the department along with its coverage area within the county/municipality. However, for some reason, I cannot locate this text any more.

Here's the beef:

I know of a department that has been established and in operation since 1993, but up until two years ago was a "sub station" of a neighboring dept due to lack of volunteers at the dept in question. Two years ago, this department had built up enough members, and was voted by the local ff association to become independent. The Chiefs of the neighboring departments met with this dept's Chief to work out new boundary lines, and that went well. The new tones have been coordinated and already been set up in dispatch, the maps and cad have already been updated, but havent been "switched on" just yet. This is where the issue is...

Dispatch refuses to "switch on" the new station in the cad as they're under the impression that ISO has to approve and establish the new station and set boundary lines themselves. As such, for the past couple years they've been dispatching a more distant station to scenes literally across the street from the station in question, with enroute times of over 10-15 minutes, when they could dispatch the closer station and be done with it.

I thought ISO was just a surveying organization to rate the effectiveness of a given department in a given area in order to approximate insurance rates for structures within that area. They give suggestions on how to improve, but however they are not an actual authority when it comes to station operations. Am I wrong?

Has anyone tried calling ISO and asking for a letter explaining that they have no involvement in this issue. That they don't set boundary line for fire districts.