Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Risk & Response (the "Service"), operated by Arborlook Insights, LLC ("Arborlook," "we," "us," or "our"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you are accessing the Service on behalf of a fire department, fire district, EMS agency, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

2. Description of Services

Risk & Response is a data analytics platform that aggregates public data sources to generate community risk profiles for U.S. fire and EMS departments. The Service includes:

• Free tier: Static risk profile pages built from public data (FEMA NRI, U.S. Census ACS, NERIS Public, OpenFEMA). Available without registration. Updated periodically.
• Data Quality assessment (free): An assessment of how complete and analyzable your department's NERIS incident records are, shown on the Response dashboard. Requires an account and NERIS enrollment; remains available at no charge after a trial ends or a subscription is canceled, as described in Section 5.
• Response Analytics (paid): Operational analytics powered by your department's NERIS incident data, including response time metrics, NFPA compliance tracking, a CRR Activity Tracker, and weekly email digests. Requires subscription and NERIS enrollment.
• Standards of Cover & Accreditation (paid): Everything in Response Analytics plus a continuously updated Standards of Cover data package, CFAI-format performance charts, unit-level analysis, and related deliverables. Supported and full-study engagement levels include analyst services. Requires subscription and NERIS enrollment.

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any feature of the Service at any time.

3. Accounts & Subscriptions

Account Registration

Paid tiers require creating an account. You agree to provide accurate information and to keep your account credentials secure. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.

Trial Period

New paid subscribers receive a 30-day free trial. At the end of the trial period, you must subscribe to continue accessing paid features. Trial accounts that do not convert to a paid subscription lose access to paid features; the free Data Quality assessment remains available, and to keep it current we continue a limited nightly retrieval of your incident data used solely to compute aggregate data-quality statistics, as described in Section 5. Incident data and derived operational analytics associated with your department are retained for 90 days after trial expiration and then deleted; if you subscribe within that window, your dashboard picks up where it left off. Aggregate data-quality statistics, account information, and any CRR activity entries you created are retained until you request account deletion.

Authorized Users

Your subscription covers use by personnel of the fire department or EMS agency that registered. You may not share your account credentials with personnel of other organizations or resell access to the Service.

4. Payment & Billing

Paid subscriptions are billed annually. Payment is processed through Stripe, a third-party payment processor. By providing payment information, you authorize Arborlook to charge your payment method for the applicable subscription fee.

Refund Policy

Annual subscriptions are non-refundable except within 14 days of the initial subscription date (not including the trial period). If you believe you were charged in error, contact us at [email protected] within 30 days of the charge.

Price Changes

We will provide at least 60 days' advance notice of any price increases for existing subscribers.

Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Upon cancellation, you will retain access through the end of your current billing period. We do not offer prorated refunds for cancellations mid-period.

5. Your Data & NERIS Integration

NERIS Integration

Paid subscriptions access your department's incident data through the NERIS API, using Arborlook's registered integration credentials. You authorize this access by completing the enrollment step in the NERIS portal (adding Arborlook as an approved integration). The same authorization supports the limited free Data Quality retrieval described below after a trial ends or a subscription is canceled. You may revoke this access at any time by removing Arborlook from your authorized integrations in NERIS.

Data Use

Incident data retrieved through NERIS is used solely to generate analytics for your department. We do not sell individual department data to third parties. Aggregated, anonymized statistics (e.g., "average response times for rural departments") may be used for platform improvement and marketing, subject to our Privacy Policy.

Free Data Quality Assessment

After your trial expires or your subscription is canceled, the Data Quality assessment on your dashboard remains available at no charge. To keep it current, we continue a limited nightly retrieval of your department's incident data through your existing NERIS authorization, used solely to compute aggregate data-quality statistics: counts of records with and without required fields such as timestamps, locations, and incident types. Incident records retrieved after your trial or subscription ends are processed transiently for this purpose and are not stored; no response-time or other operational analytics are generated from them. You may stop this retrieval at any time by removing Arborlook from your authorized integrations in NERIS or by contacting us, and you may request deletion of the aggregate statistics at any time.

Benchmarking (Optional)

If you opt into the benchmarking program during signup or in account settings, your department's anonymized response metrics (response time percentiles, call volume by type) will be included in aggregate peer benchmarks shown to other enrolled departments. Participation is voluntary. Through the benchmarking program, individual department data is never disclosed to other subscribers; only aggregates are shown, and your department is not identified. You may withdraw consent at any time by updating your account settings. Sharing identified data with a regional partner is a separate choice, governed by the section below.

Regional Data Sharing

A regional partner is an organization with jurisdictional or coordinating responsibility across multiple departments, such as a state fire marshal's office, a county fire authority, or a regional compact. Regional partners using the Service may view department-level data for the departments in their region, identified by department, on one of two bases.

If you subscribe independently, sharing with a regional partner is optional. It is off unless you turn it on, either during signup or at any time in account settings, and you may withdraw it at any time by the same means. Withdrawing removes your department from that partner's views going forward.

If your subscription is provided under a regional partner's plan, meaning that partner sponsors your access rather than you paying for it directly, sharing with that sponsoring partner is a condition of the arrangement and remains in effect for as long as the sponsorship does. In that case the setting is shown to you but cannot be switched off, and the reason is displayed. If the sponsorship ends, sharing with that partner stops and your own stored preference governs from then on.

Regional sharing is scoped to the specific partner or partners your department belongs to. It never gives a regional partner access to data from departments outside its own region, and it never gives other subscribing departments access to your data. It covers the operational analytics generated for your department; it does not change what we collect, how long we retain it, or your right to request deletion.

One consequence is worth stating plainly, because it is outside our control. A regional partner is typically a public agency. Once your data is in that agency's hands, it may become subject to the public records or open records law of that jurisdiction, and the agency, not Arborlook, decides how to respond to a request. We cannot restrict a public agency's disclosure obligations. If that matters to your department, raise it with your regional partner before enabling sharing or accepting a sponsored seat.

Data Retention

Your incident data and analytics are retained while your subscription is active. Upon cancellation or trial expiration, incident data and derived operational analytics are retained for 90 days and then deleted, giving you time to export or to re-subscribe with your history intact. Aggregate data-quality statistics (monthly field-completeness counts containing no incident details) are retained beyond that window so the free Data Quality assessment remains available; they are deleted when your account is deleted or on request. Contact us if you need a data export or earlier deletion.

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable regulations
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any portion of the Service or related systems
• Scrape, crawl, or systematically download content from the Service beyond normal use
• Use the Service to build a competing product or service
• Misrepresent your identity or the identity of your organization
• Transmit viruses, malware, or other harmful code
• Interfere with the normal operation of the Service

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these provisions.

7. Data Accuracy Disclaimer

Community risk profiles are derived from public datasets (FEMA, U.S. Census, NERIS Public, OpenFEMA). These datasets have inherent limitations:

• Census data represents statistical estimates, not exact counts, and may be several years old
• FEMA NRI scores represent modeled risk, not measured outcomes
• Department boundaries from NERIS may not precisely match legal jurisdictional boundaries
• Disaster declarations are matched to departments by county, which may over- or under-count for specific jurisdictions

Response metrics derived from NERIS incident data reflect the incidents reported in NERIS. Completeness and accuracy depend on your department's data entry practices. We perform reasonable quality checks but cannot guarantee that all reported metrics are free of data entry errors.

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT THE DATA IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR CURRENT.

8. Intellectual Property

The Risk & Response platform, including its design, analytics methodologies, software, and content (excluding public data from government sources), is the intellectual property of Arborlook Insights, LLC and is protected by copyright and other applicable laws.

Public data displayed on department pages (FEMA NRI scores, Census ACS figures, disaster declarations) is sourced from U.S. government datasets and is not subject to copyright restrictions. You are free to use, share, and reference this data with attribution to the original sources.

CSV exports from department pages may be freely used for department planning, grant applications, and public reporting.

9. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ARBORLOOK INSIGHTS, LLC AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR:

• Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
• Loss of revenue, profits, data, or goodwill
• Damages arising from reliance on data displayed in the Service
• Damages arising from decisions made using risk profiles, response metrics, or other analytics produced by the Service
• Service outages, data loss, or errors in analytics

IN NO EVENT SHALL OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO US IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or limitations on liability. In such jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

10. Indemnification

Arborlook Insights, LLC agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless you and your organization from claims arising directly from defects in the Service or Arborlook's breach of these Terms.

If you are not a government entity, you agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Arborlook Insights, LLC and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or in any way connected with: (a) your access to or use of the Service; (b) your violation of these Terms; or (c) your violation of any third-party right, including any intellectual property or privacy right.

Government entities. Many public agencies are prohibited by statute or constitution from agreeing to indemnify a vendor. If you are a government entity, the preceding paragraph does not apply to you, and nothing in these Terms requires you to indemnify Arborlook. Each party instead remains responsible for its own acts and omissions to the extent provided by applicable law. Arborlook's indemnity to you is unchanged and remains in force.

11. Termination

You may terminate your account at any time by canceling your subscription in account settings or by contacting us. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, fail to pay, or if we discontinue the Service.

Upon termination: (a) your right to access the Service ends immediately; (b) we will retain your data for 90 days, after which it will be deleted; (c) provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive will survive, including Sections 7–10 and 13.

Letting a trial or subscription lapse is not termination of your account: your account, your CRR activity entries, and the free Data Quality assessment (including the limited retrieval described in Section 5) remain available until you terminate your account, revoke the NERIS integration, or request deletion.

12. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify paid subscribers by email at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

The current effective date is shown at the top of this page. You can view the history of changes by contacting us.

13. Governing Law & Disputes

Nothing in these Terms waives any sovereign immunity protections applicable to government entities.

Government entities. If you are a government entity, these Terms are governed by the laws of the state in which you are organized, without regard to conflict of law principles, and any dispute shall be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in that state. We will not ask a public agency to litigate outside its own jurisdiction or under another state's law. Where your procuring authority requires specific contract terms, we are willing to negotiate an addendum; contact us at the address in Section 14.

All other customers. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Oregon, without regard to conflict of law principles, with proceedings conducted in Portland, Oregon.

Before either party pursues litigation, we ask that the dispute first be submitted to non-binding mediation, which either party may decline. Nothing in this paragraph limits either party's right to pursue any remedy otherwise available to it, and either party may seek injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to prevent irreparable harm pending resolution of any dispute.

If you are not a government entity, you and Arborlook agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class or representative action. This paragraph does not apply to government entities.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these Terms, please contact:

Arborlook Insights, LLC
Email: [email protected]

See also our Privacy Policy.