Fire Department receives improved ISO rating

Mountain Brook Fire Department has moved up in its fire protection rating.

The Insurance Services Office (ISO) rated the department in August, and its Public Protection Classification Division was officially upgraded from a Class 3 to a Class 2 rating a few weeks ago. The department received an 87.18, and a Class 2 rating includes a range from 80 to 89.99, said Fire Chief Robert Ezekiel.

“We’re very secure up there in the Class 2 rating,” Ezekiel said.

With a Class 2 rating, the Mountain Brook Fire Department ranks among the top 2 percent of more than 48,000 departments rated by the ISO. This rating is one of the factors taken into account by insurance companies.

When the department had a Class 3 rating, Ezekiel asked a local insurance company to look at the difference in insurance rates for a Class 9 and Class 3 department. The company said on average, the higher rating saved home owners $2,000 a year on insurance costs.

“If you live in Mountain Brook and you’ve never called the fire department for fire services … what you get every year is a great savings in your home insurance ratings,” Ezekiel said.

Although home owners probably will not see much of a change in their insurance rates, Ezekiel said he encouraged business owners to check with their insurance providers.

Ezekiel said the department’s improved rating comes in part from improved facilities and collective efforts to make positive changes. In 2006, when the department was last rated, there was no drill tower for training purposes. Having that facility, Ezekiel said, helped improve the department’s score in regard to training.

The department also benefitted from a high score in communication in dispatch. The new dispatch center, which was built along with the new municipal center, as well as a pre-alert system helped improve response time and thereby increase the department’s score.

“Time is our enemy in anything we do,” Ezekiel said. “Anything we can do to shave off time … it helps us.”

The pre-alert system sends a signal down to the firefighters as dispatch receives a call. This way, the firefighters are preparing to leave the station as the dispatcher collects information. The system shaves about 20 seconds off of response time, Ezekiel said, and does so in a safe manner.

In addition to response time, the ISO rating considers resources available to the firefighters on scene. The department provides a map of all fire hydrant locations, and then an overlay showing a 1,000-foot diameter around those hydrants is constructed. Anywhere there is a gap, the department receives a mark-down.

“Obviously if you don’t have water to fight the fire, you’re just one of the people sitting there watching it burn,” Ezekiel said.

Ezekiel said there are two areas — one area of Rock Hill Road and another on Shook Hill Road — that were not within 1,000 feet of a hydrant, but the department was already aware of those locations.

The city planned for more hydrants on Rock Hill Road as it planned this year’s budget, Ezekiel said, and that problem area is on its way to being fixed.

On Shook Hill Road, however, there is no water main, and placing a hydrant there is not as easy of a fix. The department plans to address the issue in the future, Ezekiel said.

An ISO rating also takes training into account, which Ezekiel said the department focuses a lot of effort on.

“We’ve got an outstanding staff of folks who are enthusiastic about training,” he said.

There are still a few ways to improve, Ezekiel said, but most of those would not be economical on a cost-benefit scale. At this time, he said the department is working to utilize its resources without incurring the large cost of a new fire station or additional staffing.

“We’ve probably maximized [our score] looking at it from a cost-benefit perspective,” Ezekiel said.