Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
The Orland Fire Protection District is in line to receive a Class 1 rating from the Insurance Services Office to take effect Dec. 1,. The district will join a handful of departments and districts in Illinois with this rating.
In setting the Public Protection Classification ratings, the ISO, a unit of Verisk Analytics, examines a fire department’s operations, a community’s or district’s water supply and its emergency communications system. Examination of the department includes areas such as response times, the type and extent of training that personnel received, and the maintenance and testing processes for equipment, and a department’s or district’s fire prevention efforts and public fire safety education.
ISO ranks departments and fire protection districts on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 indicating superior fire prevention and suppression capacity and 10 being the poorest level, and it notes that virtually all property insurers use the Public Protection Classification to calculate premiums.
Just 14 of Illinois’ 2,162 fire departments and districts have a Class 1 rating and nationally, 270 of 47,000 departments.
Orland Fire Chief Michael Schofield said the district achieved a Class 2 rating 25 years ago under then-chief Robert Buhs, who served from 1988 to 2002.
thanks Dan
