(Seguin) — The city of Seguin is in need of a new fire station. The Seguin City Council recently received an update regarding the city’s Insurance Service Organization (ISO) rating.
Seguin Fire Chief Dale Skinner says they recently had a study completed that looked at the rating. The ISO rating is a complicated measurement that looks at the availability of emergency services, and it also measures an area’s proximity to the immediate access of those services.
There are some other factors, but perhaps the most important to the public is the fact that the ISO can impact insurance premiums paid by people that live in certain areas of the city.
“They help set insurance premiums for homeowners and businesses and they do that through the public protection classification or the PPC. From this point forward, we will just refer to it as a ISO rating. It’s easier to say that. So they help determine your rates. The insurance companies actually pay ISO for them to actually do this work to evaluate communities and their capabilities. Don’t misunderstand capabilities with competency. We are a very aggressive fire department. We are a very good fire department. ISO just comes in and looks at your capabilities,” said Skinner.
Seguin currently has a solid ISO rating, but another station is needed if they want to continue to maintain that rating or look to improve upon it.
“Our last evaluation was done in 2016 where we improved our rating from an ISO 3 to an ISO2 which is where we sit today. So as cities are assigned that PPC rating from a 1 through a 10 with one being the best and 10 being the worst. So 1 is you have all the capabilities needed to serve your community and a 10 can be no capabilities so a community with no fire department would receive a 10,” said Skinner.
Chief Skinner says they currently cover a great deal of territory with the three existing fire stations in the city, but there is a clear need for another station.
“We operate today out of three fire stations and each fire station we operate an engine. So we have two engines and then a ladder/quint whic is a fancy word for a fire truck that has a ladder and a pump and each fire station has an EMS/ambulance and those are also firefighters, paramedics or fire fighter EMT s that carry their fire fighting equipment and gear so they are able to respond and then a battalion chief. So, we have 22 authorized positions per day with a minimum staffing of 17. As you can see on the map here — obviously there is the layout of the city — that is the most current city map and then you can see the three little dots that are in an angle. That is our current three fire station locations. Police pay attention to the big void to the north,” said Skinner.
Chief Skinner says in order for the city to maintain a solid rating, it needs to look at the creation of a fire station, particularly one located north of Interstate 10, where a significant amount of growth in the city is occurring. There are several new subdivisions actively building north of the interstate on both State Highways 46 and 123.
“Obviously, we need to construct a fire station No. 4. How do we do that? First, we need to acquire the land and then design the fire station. These things usually take about a year to two years to accomplish. We don’t believe we have that much time. The need is there today and this can still be accomplished very easily by purchasing or acquiring land, building temporary structures and operate out of that until the funding is available to actually build the fire station and of course, hiring the additional staff required to open up Fire Station No. 4 which is a pretty good number of fire fighters — to be able to open up that fire station up in 2026 and also, what is going to help us with our grading is to sign what’s called an Auto(matic) aid agreement with the Guadalupe County Fire Rescue. As many of you know, they actually operate within the city of Seguin so they are a resource that can be counted toward our ISO rating and so having an auto aid agreement would help us tremendously. What that means is we don’t have to call and ask for them when there is a structure fire. They are automatically dispatched,” said Skinner.
Councilman Jim Lievens, who represents a large portion of that fast growing area, says that the study clearly shows the need for the city to start working towards developing a fire station north of I-10.
“So, when I ran for election less than two years ago, I think I said according to the appraisal district data, that about 15 percent of the city of Seguin’s households where in the Navarro ISD. I wish I had data for north of IH-10 but I don’t have that. So, we are basically about Rudeloff Road and north. I checked last month and that number has now grown to 20.8 percent. It just continues growing and we all know that it will. As you have to cross IH-10, as you have to cross railroad tracks to reach all those households north of IH-10, it becomes a public safety issue,” said Lievens.
Everyone seemed to agree that the need was there and the clock was ticking. City Manager Steve Parker says there are some options that can be considered to get moving on this issue. The first step will be securing the land for the new firehouse.
“We do have some developments that are in a perfect location that are coming to Seguin. I think we had some very good initial discussions with those developments. We talked a lot about public improvement districts where they would donate the land as part of the Public Improvement District (PID)to be able to issue the PID bonds and then actually maybe even put money towards the construction of a fire station. We have had initial discussions — if they are not far enough along maybe there is a chance to use some of that property – do some temporary structures — I think depending on our net capacity, we are probably looking at a November 2025 election where we will be able to probably fund some things temporarily until that happened to get some resources up on the north side of IH-10,” said Parker.
The creation of Fire Station No. 4 would provide the city with the coverage that it needs to handle that expanding part of the community. Chief Skinner says it will also give the city what it needs to protect its ISO rating.
“If we put a station up in the recommended area which is around the Rudeloff and Huber area, that fire station and that location would get us complete coverage of the 46 quarter and so any areas that are outside of that five miles, don’t have residents in it as we sit here today up around the Geronimo area but if that Geronimo area does develop, then that would require that additional Fire Station No. 6 up that 123 quarter but today, our focus from the fire department’s perspective is that 46 quarter and Cordova location where those folks are outside of those five road miles,” said Skinner.
Skinner says the study also suggested that the city consider some other actions to help improve its ISO rating. That includes more opportunities to work with others.
“Explore some additional county and city agreements whether that be with a joint facility where we share a facility or personnel. Construct Fire Station No. 5 which we already own the land for that up in the corner of Meadow Lake and Stockdale Highway and then obtain land for Fire Station No. 6 somewhere around 123 near Geronimo so up on that far north eastern part of the city and then another recommendation assuming the way our growth patterns are — so if we start to grow a little bit more out 90, then we will need to relocate Fire Station No. 3 a little bit more towards the east to give us good coverage there and then the same with Fire Station No. 2 just relocate it about a mile away at West Kingsbury and 464 in that general area,” said Skinner.
Skinner says they want to assure the public that the fire department is able to meet the needs of the community, but they need to make sure they are also ready to handle future growth that is coming to the community.
“By no means was it our intent to scare you and that bad things are happening. Your fire department is still a very good fire department.
However, we are concerned about response times in the northern part of town. The need for services, the demand on our service delivery is increasing every single day and so the addition of that engine and staff would help offset some of that,” said Skinner.
The report on the ISO study did not require any action from the city council when it met earlier this month. However, it was clear that council members wanted to make sure the city’s ISO rating stayed strong or improved, and that they understood the need for the new firehouse to be built sooner, rather than later.