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Hurricane Valley Fire chief reports rescue call, ISO rating improvement and state EMS and wildfire bills
Summary
Chief Tyler Ames told the Rockville Town Council about a recent hoist rescue, an improvement in the department's ISO structure-fire rating and two state bills that could affect EMS billing and wildfire insurance mapping.
Tyler Ames, chief of the Hurricane Valley Fire Special Service District, told the Rockville Town Council on March 12 that crews responded to two calls in Rockville last month and took part in a hoist rescue in The Narrows.
Ames said a woman who apparently had a seizure was found face down; Utah Department of Public Safety air units hoisted her out and met the ambulance. "I don't know. I know that the crew said that she was talking with them and everything like that," Ames said.
Ames also gave a legislative update. He said a local sales-tax bill failed this year after being amended in the House and returning to the Senate late on the last day of the session. "It ran out of time," he said.
He reported that House Bill 301, which Ames described as moving EMS billing provisions into state statute, passed. "Essentially, what it does is it moves it from administrative law into state statute," Ames said, and officials hope the change will improve collections on ambulance bills.
Ames said House Bill 48 also passed; it requires use of a wildfire-risk assessment map for certain insurance decisions and creates a process for local mitigation work to be submitted for map updates. He described how local crews can clear vegetation and submit that work to the state to correct the federal map where it is inaccurate. "Cap Hirschfeld on our wildland crew, he'll go out and he'll say, okay. Let's go clear out these couple of acres, and then what he'll do is he'll submit that to the state," Ames said.
Ames told the council the district's Insurance Services Office rating for structure-fire protection is improving. "We went from a 6 to a 4," he said, and said the change takes effect April 1. He said the department is close to achieving a rating of 3 after addressing a few items.
Council members asked for the wildfire-risk map and Ames agreed to email a link to the municipal staff.
The chief also said he had been trying to reach Washington County emergency-management staff about CERT training for local residents and that one contact, Jason Whipple, was out for federal training. "I do know that Tiffany doesn't work there anymore," Ames said when asked about another contact. He offered to follow up with the county and relay any contact details to the town.
The council did not take formal action on the report; it accepted the information and asked staff to share the wildfire map link when available.
