Foley's fire protection has improved in recent years, even as emergency call volume surged by 75%, a national evaluation found.

The Insurance Services Organization, or ISO, which independently assesses fire departments across the country, recently completed its latest review of the Foley Fire Department. Though the city's ISO rating remains at Class 3, the department's overall score rose from 71 to 78.08 — putting Foley less than two points away from the more elite Class 2 designation.

"This is well earned," Mayor Ralph Hellmich said. "We appreciate it. I know you all work hard. You've worked hard in the time you've been here. This is a very professional group and we appreciate your hard work."

The ISO rates fire protection on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 meaning no recognized fire protection. A rating of 3 is considered strong, particularly for a department that covers an area as large as Foley's, according to Fire Chief Joey Darby.

"I'm very, very pleased to tell you that our point value went up significantly," Darby told city council members. "We're at 78.08, which puts us less than two points away from Class 2. Quite frankly, the last time we were surveyed, I would have said that a Class 2 was mathematically impossible for the city of Foley, just because of the geographical area that we were responding to."

Foley's fire rating has remained at 3 since the last ISO assessment in 2018, but Darby noted the score improvement — nearly 10% higher — reflects major gains in capacity and effectiveness. The city's population jumped from about 20,000 in the 2020 census to roughly 30,000 today.

Darby credited the improved score to the efforts of the entire department.

"This is the first time they've ever done this. It compares us to peer groups," Darby said. "In other words, they take communities that are similar to Foley, similar in size, similar in population, similar in the size of the fire department, and they use that as the peer group. That's the comparison, I'm very proud of the fact that in every category on here, we far exceeded the peer group. So we exceeded the state average, the national average, and the peer group. There's a lot of effort that's gone into that."

The ISO evaluation looks beyond the fire department itself. Inspectors assess emergency communications systems, such as 911 call handling, and the water supply infrastructure, including providers like Riviera Utilities. ISO also factors in prevention efforts, public education and code enforcement.

"They come in and they evaluate us from how we respond, to the apparatus that we have, to the equipment that we have, to the personnel that we have, how we train, how we prepare our community, and look at basically every function that we do as it relates to our ability to respond to structure fires," Darby said.

Community engagement played a key role in boosting Foley's score. Education and outreach, especially in schools and among older residents, along with city-adopted fire codes and enforcement practices, earned Foley nearly the maximum number of bonus points.

"We're very proud of that, because that's to me, in a sense, it takes a lot of work to go into that, but that's low hanging fruit without risking damage to our community," Darby said.

Darby also emphasized that a higher ISO score can translate to lower fire insurance premiums for residents, offering both safety and financial benefits to the growing city.