The city of Bryan has achieved the best fire protection standard in the country.
Phillip Bradley with the ISO rating company and Texas state fire marshal Chris Connealy congratulated city officials during a presentation at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Fire chief Randy McGregor said the ISO-1 rating also takes into account Brazos County 9-1-1 dispatch and the city’s water services department.
Bryan is one of 57 cities in Texas and 311 in the country to achieve the top rating, which is used by insurance companies to determine premium rates for policyholders.
Click below to hear comments from the presentation at the March 27, 2018 Bryan city council meeting.
Additional information from the city of Bryan:
At the March 27th Bryan City Council meeting, representatives from the Insurance Services Office (ISO) and the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office presented the City of Bryan with official recognition as a community with a Class 1 ISO rating. This highly sought after rating is a result of the combined efforts of the Bryan Fire Department, City of Bryan Water Services Department, and Brazos County 911 Emergency Communications District.
Effective April 1st, 2018, the City of Bryan will be one of only 305 out of 47,500 fire departments and protection areas nationwide that holds this classification. The Public Protection Classification (PPC™) program provides important, up-to-date information about municipal fire protection services in each community surveyed. ISO’s expert staff collects information about the quality of public fire protection in fire protection areas across the United States and in each of those areas, ISO analyzes the relevant data and assigns a PPC – a grading from 1 to 10. Class 1 generally represents superior property fire protection and Class 10 indicates that the area’s fire suppression program does not meet ISO’s minimum criteria.
Most U.S. insurers of home and business properties use the ISO’s PPC in calculating premiums. In general, the price of insurance in a community with a good PPC is lower than in a community with a poor PPC, assuming all other factors are equal.
A community’s PPC depends on: (1) emergency communications systems, including facilities for the public to report fires, staffing, training, certification of telecommunicators, and facilities for dispatching fire departments; (2) the fire department, including equipment, staffing, training, and geographic deployment of fire companies; (3) the water supply system, including the inspection and flow testing of hydrants and a careful evaluation of the amount of available water compared with the amount needed to suppress fires; and (4) community efforts to reduce the risk of fire, including fire prevention codes and enforcement, public fire safety education, and fire investigation programs.
“We are proud to have been named a Class 1 community,” shares Bryan Fire Chief Randy McGregor. “It is a direct result of the combined efforts of our firefighters, public works staff, and 911 emergency dispatchers as well as the support of City Council to make Bryan an even safer, more welcoming place to live, raise a family, work, and visit.”
