FY2019 Arlington Fire Department Annual Report FY 2019 | Page 18

awards & accreditations ISO ratings are used by most insurance companies to predict/analyze risk when generating insurance premiums. Fire departments are evaluated and classified every 10 years by the Insurance Service Office (ISO), an insurance industry risk management firm, using a Public Protection Classification (PPC) program. Scores range from 1-10, with 1 as the top score. AFD's new ISO 1 rating became effective March 1, 2018. The Arlington Bomb squad is re-evaluated by the FBI every five years to check for compliance and accreditation. The bomb squad has passed and is an accredited squad. The Public Safety Communications Accreditation Program provides a communications center, or the communications unit of a public safety agency, with a process to systemically review and internally assess its operations and procedures. This program requires organizations to collect and analyze important data for the purpose of making sound operational and administrative business decisions, creating leadership and practitioner accountability. The Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) is the voluntary standards, assessment, and accreditation process for disaster preparedness programs throughout the world by establishing credible standards applied in a peer- review accreditation process. StormReady® designation is awarded to those communities that take prescribed steps to lower their vulnerability to extreme weather and water events. The program encourages communities to take a new, proactive approach to improving local hazardous weather operations by providing emergency managers with clear-cut guidelines on how to improve their hazardous weather operations. HEARTSafe Communities are ones that meet the criteria established by the Citizen CPR Foundation and recertify every 3 years. Arlington is a community of heroes and survivors committed to improving action and response to cardiac arrest through training, preparation and response protocols. 18 In January 2014, the Texas Association of Partners in Education (TAPE) presented the AFD/AISD Fire Academy the TAPE Partnership Gold Award in the Partnership Program Innovation category, beating out 65 other nominees. In September 2014, the Texas Municipal League honored AFD the Municipal Excellence in Public Safety Award for the AISD Fire Academy.