Thursday, August 18, 2016
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
The city fire department has learned it has been rated as being in the top two percent of departments in the country.
Chief John O’Neill said Insurance Services Office, a major evaluator of fire departments across the nation, has upgraded the city’s Public Protection Classification from a Class 3 to a Class 2.
The designation measures how well the department is able to save property and protect the city overall. The Class 2 designation puts the city in a class with 1,060 fire departments out of more than 49,000 in the United States, O’Neill said Wednesday.
In Youngstown, the designation will go into effect in November.
O’Neill said the ISO examines departments every five years, although a new evaluation can be requested if the city or department in question has undergone major changes.
The rating could help property owners with their property insurance because it could cause some of those premiums to go down, O’Neill said, and it also can help attract new businesses to the city and persuade others to stay because they can save on their property-insurance premiums.
O’Neill did say that not all insurance companies use ISO in determining their rates but he said a majority do.
The ISO rates a department by three criteria, O’Neill said – its water system, its 911 emergency-dispatching system and its training and equipment.
The department was able to show evaluators improvements to the maintenance and distribution of the water system as well as its response times, O’Neill said.
In a letter to Mayor John A. McNally, O’Neill said it has taken 20 years for the city to achieve the designation.
“We’re really proud of this,” O’Neill said.