Following a re-evalution of Fannin County’s fire protection, the Insurance Service Office (ISO) found that the department’s Public Protection Classification has improved, however, the publication of the new classification and its going into effect could take several months.
“They are into the process now as far as getting it published,” Fannin County Fire Chief Larry Thomas said during a Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, February 23. “The publishing, it does take a long time, as we all know from before when we got the letter saying we were gonna go up a class. It seemed like it took it forever to ever go into effect, but that’s what we’re waiting on now.”
ISO returned to the county for another inspection last November at the request of county officials.
Following the completed evaluation, ISO Community Hazard Mitigation Manager Michael Morash told Thomas, via email January 27, that the department had improved in class. Morash could not, however, give Thomas a date that the new classification would go into effect.
The county had previously received a classification rating of 6/6X in July of 2019, which dictated that the county’s fire protection was worse than it had been in 2012 when it was classified at a 5/9.
Thomas shared with the board that Morash also told him, during a phone conversation, that the county’s new classification will return to a 5.
“At least it appears that we’re going to go from a 6 to a 5,” Chairman Jamie Hensley said. “I think you (Thomas) know we need to set goals to even try to improve on that. As a regular citizen, I think we know the difference that it costs the citizens here and about like with insurance for instance. So, for that to come back down to Class 5 is a pretty good start, but let’s just keep hammering on that.”
Post One Commissioner Earl Johnson expressed his hope that the new classification would go into effect soon to allow insurance companies to prepare new quotes for county residents and asked Thomas for an update on fire hydrants and department training.
Thomas informed the board that the department was on its third round of checking hydrants across the county since the last ISO classification change, and the department has been conducting trainings every Monday.
“That’s going to have to be continuous no matter whether we’re in a year of them auditing our fire services or not,” Johnson said regarding hydrant inspection. “It is very crucial to have constant maintenance of our fire hydrants.”
According to Thomas, the department has two employees that will check each hydrant each year.