Excerpts from vah.com:
Fire Chief Lance Harris is proud to announce that the Arlington Heights Fire Department was again approved as an ISO CLASS 1 organization, following a thorough evaluation by the Public Protection Classification Insurance Services Office. Additionally, the Arlington Heights Fire Department received one of the highest scores recorded at 97.21. This is the fire departments second consecutive evaluation receiving this honor.
ISO ratings are designed to score a fire department’s ability to protect their community, with ISO CLASS 1 ranked as the highest possible class. Currently, out of approximately 40,000 fire departments nationwide, there are just over 400 departments to hold an ISO CLASS 1 rating, with only 29 in Illinois.
Key factors that contributed to the fire department improving its CLASS 1 rating score were improved record keeping, training, the fire department’s Community Risk Reduction Program, the accredited dispatch agency Northwest Central Dispatch, and the village’s water distribution system in combination with maintenance and testing of the villages fire hydrants.
thanks Martin
#1 by Mike on August 7, 2022 - 2:08 PM
Chuck. Chicago is an ISO class 1 department
#2 by Chuck on August 7, 2022 - 1:51 PM
Drew, thanks for providing a very understandable explanation of the ISO rating criteria. That being said, anybody know what the City of Chicago’s rating is?
#3 by BMurphy on August 7, 2022 - 11:31 AM
The ISO PPC program exists for the purpose of calculating property insurance premiums. No more, no less.
ISO is “an organization that collects statistical data, promulgates rating information, develops standard policy forms, and files information with state regulators on behalf of insurance companies that purchase its services.”
The PPC score is vital to the property insurance industry, creating and maintaining a means to consistently and accurately predict and assess the costs to underwrite property insurance within a given geographic location.
A PPC is calculated using definable statistics and numerical data, in order to reduce subjectivity to the lowest potential.
It would be extremely difficult for property insurance providers to accurately and consistently predict and assess costs to insureds without a standardized means of data collection and analysis. This would lead to over- or under-charging practices, which are detrimental to both policyholders and coverage providers.
For any given property, the local PPC, combined with construction type, occupancy, protective features and prior loss history form the foundation for the premiums assessed.
Ancillary uses and benefits of a locale’s PCC include real estate marketing and development efforts and justification for monies spent on public fire protection.
In the reality of the fire service, while having a ‘good score’ is certainly an accomplishment, it doesn’t necessarily impact the daily nuances of ‘the job.’ These ‘nuances’ are related to the more intangible (and dare say important) aspects such as real-world leadership and training, forward-thinking and progressive operations, teamwork, department ‘culture’ and other subjective and non-quantifiable fire service elements.
#4 by Drew Smith on August 6, 2022 - 11:44 PM
Please allow me to clarify my comment about Section 5 subsections totaling 100 points. Section 5, FD, totals 48 points broken down as follows:
6 for engine companies
0.5 for reserve pumpers
3 for pumpers
4 for trucks/ladders
0.5 for reserve trucks/ladders
10 for deployment analysis
15 for personnel/company staffing
9 for training
Each of these subsections has its own points scale. The training subsection has eight categories that total 100 points. If you only each 65 points for training then you only will be credited with 5.85 of the 9 points.
#5 by Drew Smith on August 6, 2022 - 11:23 PM
The ISO Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) consists of 13 sections.
Sections 8 and 9 are reserved for future use. Sections 1-7 and 10 are used to evaluate departments that can exceed the criteria in section 1. If you can’t exceed Section 1 then you might be a Class 8b or 9. If you can’t meet Section 1 at all you are a Class 10 (effectively, no FD).
Section 3 determines Needed Fire Flow (NFF). NFF is used in a number of areas throughout the FSRS. Most notably, NFF determines the Basic Fire Flow and that is the basis for the required number of engine companies on the first alarm.
Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10 are used to grade a fire department.
Section 4 is Emergency Communications (dispatching) and is worth 10 points. Many regional dispatch centers can achieve all their points but the FD itself may lose a few of the 10 points if the firehouses don’t comply with this section of the FSRS which is referenced to NFPA 1221.
Section 5 is Fire Department and is worth 48 points. Section 5 contains provisions for engines and trucks/ladders, training, and deployment. Credit for personnel is laid out and awarded based on whether the FFs are on duty, on call, or public safety officers. Pre-2012 the FSRS referred to personnel as paid or volunteer. In the current schedule, compensation isn’t a factor – it’s whether the members are on duty (in the firehouse on a shift) or not on duty (and respond when summoned). Automatic Aid is permitted and provide the FD and AA FD meet all the criteria in the FSRS the AA will count 100 percent. Practically, and in my experience, this is not always the case due to dispatch differences and lack of quarterly joint training. Credit for personnel is the one and only area of the FSRS where credit is essentially unlimited provided each FF meets the training requirements in the FSRS. If you have 20 FFs, all on duty, respond but not all of them meet the training requirements then credit is reduced. Space does not permit me to go into some of the many scenarios that may occur when comparing two or more FDs. Just because both may have 10 members and send three engines doesn’t mean each will achieve the same credit.
Section 6 is Water Supply and is worth 40 points. The FD usually plays little to no role in this unless they perform the annual fire hydrant inspections. It is usually the responsibility of public works, a water commission or authority, or a private utility such as IL American Water to demonstrate documentation of compliance with Section 6. FDs that rely on tankers or relay pumping may achieve substantial points for their operations. However, FFs used for this alternative water supply operation are not counted as suppression personnel under Section 5.
Section 7 is Operational Considerations and is worth 2 points, 1 point for having an ICS and 1 point for having SOPs/SOGs on operations. If a FD can’t easily demonstrate these then they probably have other issues too. Sections 5 and 7 total 50 points and are reported together under “Fire Department” in ISO’s grading report.
Section 10 is Community Risk Reductions and is worth 5.5 points. CRR encompasses fire prevention, fire investigation, and public education. CRR was added to the FSRS in the 2012 revision.
If you read the sections of the FSRS you will see that each section is made up of multiple subsections with each subsection having its own points scale. For example, while Section 5, fire department, is worth 48 points its subsections total 100 points. In the end, the subsection points translate to the main section points and the five sections (4, 5, 6, 7, and 10) add up to produce a classification between 1 and 8.
Every 10 points equals a class. Class 1 FDs had at least 90 points, Class 2 at least 80 points, etc.
You’ll notice the five sections add up to 105.5 points but the scale essentially only requires 90 points to achieve Class 1. A score of 90.1 doesn’t get you anything more.
Here is my opinion:
1) A fire chief is unwise to not do what he can to achieve the best rating. Ratings are used for many but not all property insurance premium underwriting. If you don’t help your taxpayers pay the lowest possible insurance premium then be prepared to tell them and your elected officials why you don’t.
2) I would never spend money from the FD budget solely to achieve a better ISO rating. Having been through five of gradings, I can say it is not much work to make what you do fit what ISO is looking for.
3) If you don’t use automatic aid for your first alarm (initial dispatch) and aren’t one of the few larger, well-staffed and equipped suburbs then why not? ISO aside, have you performed even a crude analysis of what tasks are required for a typical working structure fire and matched it to what companies you dispatch to see if your vision is possible?
For more info see https://www.isomitigation.com/ppc/
#6 by Mike on August 6, 2022 - 6:04 PM
Jim I think dispatching counts for 50 points. Which is silly. I know how the program is broken down and it needs to be changed. Things like company availability, response availability and over response time and number of personnel as it compared to NFPA 1710 pr 1720 should play a big part. You don’t see many iso 1 departments but 2’s and 3’d are running 2 man companies and or jump companies and still getting full credit. If NFPA 1500 says the recommendation is 4 man staffing then iso should base their staffing credit off of 4 man staffing. Same for the distance and availability for equipment. So if your ambulance is cross staffing a ladder truck and the ambulance isn’t available say 50% of the time then you should only get 50% of the credit for having a ladder truck.
If the ISO grading scale is done to actually reflect how the departments operate fighting for staffing wouldn’t be as hard as it is today.
#7 by Jim on August 6, 2022 - 4:43 PM
Mike,
Staffing is15 points and deployment of staffing is 10 points. The two largest points in the ISO rating for the fire department. The only category larger is water supply system, 30 points for having the needed flow for the fire flow. Different municipalities or districts may have different fire flows and therefore different needs.
#8 by Mike on August 5, 2022 - 11:40 AM
Congratulations Arlington, they actually do deserve this because it’s not just them doing paperwork to get this. They have a decent training facility and manpower to staff apparatus so they’re actually meeting what’s required for real unlike other departments that just look good on paper to obtain whatever ISO rating they have. Personally ISO needs to be re-evaluated so that manpower and staffing is the biggest factor in getting your rating. But that will never happen.