The Insurance Services Offices has notified the Lenexa Fire Department that its Public Protection Classification rating will be upgraded.
The new Class 2 rating will go into affect Oct. 1. Lenexa's current rating of Class 4 has existed since 1978.
While no city in Kansas has a Class 1 rating, three other cities in Kansas have Class 2 ratings, including Merriam, Lawrence and Leavenworth.
The ISO rates on a scale of 1 to10, with 1 being exemplary. Ten is classified as having no protection. More than 46,000 fire departments across the country have been rated by the ISO. About 400 of them received a class rating of 2 or better.
Lenexa Fire Chief Kenneth Hobbs said that a proactive approach by past and current city councils for quality fire protection, along with the 2001 fire protection improvement plan, have made this ISO class reduction possible.
