Washington State Fire Chiefs along with their insurance broker, Shane Heston of Trask Insurance, are pleased to announce a new benefit to our member departments with 50k to 100k in assessed value.   

Recently WFC partnered with Provident Insurance, a leading insurer for emergency services, to roll out a new 24 hour AD&D Accidental Death and Dismemberment group policy.  This group policy is intended to cover departments that are generally smaller in size and mostly volunteer.  The idea behind this benefit is to be included with membership with WFC and used as an incentive increasing volunteer benefits within both the department and WFC membership.  

Three years ago, in the early hours of July 13, a runaway oil train exploded in the then-idyllic lakeside town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.

The investigation and ensuing cascade of regulatory measures severely disrupted the nascent crude-by-rail industry, caused federal authorities in Canada and the U.S. to condemn most of the continental tank car fleet, and turned the chattering classes against the railroads, amid a ruthless tarring by the petroleum lobby, for not “keeping the damn trains on the track.”

After all that, crude oil trains continue to derail and blow up; and the official blaming continues to target the railroads. The Federal Railroad Administration’s preliminary report on the July 3 explosion of four cars in Mosier, Ore., blames Union Pacific, citing sheared lag bolts and loose tieplates as the cause of the derailment.