After its primary service area shrank back to the city limits in mid-2025, the Statesboro Fire Department underwent a re-evaluation by Insurance Services Office Inc. Now, the department has obtained for that area, which is the city of Statesboro, a Class 1 ISO fire protection rating – the best possible – slated to take effect Sept. 1.
Previously, in 2019, the department had attained an ISO Class 2 rating for its primary service community, which then included both the entirety of Statesboro and a district outside the city limits for five road miles from the two long-established SFD stations.
Statesboro Fire Chief Tim Grams made a brief announcement of the new ISO rating achievement to the mayor and City Council members during their 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 21 work session and repeated it during the 5:30 p.m. council meeting. The department issued a media release the next day.
“I could not be prouder of the members of the Statesboro Fire Department,” Grams said in the release. “This Class 1 rating is the result of countless hours of training, preparation, and service.”
The rating, he said, “reflects a culture of excellence” the department’s personnel have “built and sustained through hard work and accountability.
“They have earned this recognition, and they deserve to be recognized for the professionalism, pride, and commitment they bring to this department and to the citizens of Statesboro every single day,” Grams said.
The Insurance Services Office is not a government agency. It’s a corporation, now a subsidiary of Verisk Analytics, which provides information to the insurance industry, and the ratings noted here are really those of ISO’s Public Protection Classification, or PPC, program. In this program, ISO representatives evaluate a community’s fire protection capabilities, including emergency communications, fire department operations, water supply and community risk reduction efforts.
Top 1.4% nationally
The classifications follow a 1-10 scale, with “1” representing the best available fire response, and “10” no recognized public fire protection. With the recent evaluation, the Statesboro Fire Department and its service area received a score of 92.96 out of 105.5 possible points, placing Statesboro among a very small number of communities nationwide to achieve this distinction.
“Based on ISO’s 2026 published nationwide distribution of communities by PPC grade, only 517 out of 37,358 communities, about 1.4%, achieved a Class 1 rating,” Grams reported. ISO Inc. does not release its ratings directly to the general public but makes them available through insurance agencies and fire departments.
In addition to “highly trained personnel” and the quality of the department’s equipment and communications, the fire chief also credited the city’s water distribution capability and the SFD’s ongoing fire prevention, inspections and public education initiatives.
“Achieving a Class 1 rating is a major milestone, but maintaining it is just as important,” Grams said. “We will continue to focus on training, preparedness, prevention, and service to ensure the residents and businesses of Statesboro receive the highest level of fire protection possible.”
The SFD’s release also states: “In some cases, property owners may also see their insurance rates decrease depending on their carrier and policy.”
Other big changes
At the beginning of 2025, negotiations broke down between Statesboro city and Bulloch County officials for renewal of the longstanding agreement under which the county provided revenue, collected from a special fire service property tax district, to the city in exchange for the SFD’s primary protection of the five-mile district.
Effective July 1, 2025, the expanded Bulloch County Fire Department took over providing fire service to the former five-mile district. So the county now furnishes all of its fire service tax revenue to the BCFD.
Funding challenges
As a result of that change, and the expiration this summer of a three-year federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER, grant that had covered the hiring of 12 more full-time firefighters, the city now faces about a $4 million shortfall in funding the SFD for fiscal year 2027.
City officials recently shelved the idea of imposing a monthly fire service fee on all addresses, citing the likelihood of lawsuits like those brought against a number of Georgia cities and counties with fire service fees. But the city so far is maintaining the Fire Department’s staffing at the full 2025 level and exploring other revenue options, with the most obvious being a general millage rate increase.
Meanwhile, the city has also moved forward with construction of SFD Station 3, off Brannen Street Extension behind Lowe's. Costing roughly $5 million to build and furnish, it’s being financed with a 20-year loan from the Georgia Municipal Association and funded with Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax revenue.