Two houses a mile apart on the same road east of Falcon do not carry the same fire protection class. Falcon Fire Protection District publishes its rating as Class 3/10. The Class 3 stops at five road miles.
I'm Brandon Behr, a REALTOR® with the Behr & Behr Team in Colorado Springs, and that five-mile line moves your homeowners premium. Which district you land in, and how far you sit from its nearest station and from a creditable water supply, is a pricing input carriers use. Buyers rarely check it before they write.
What ISO counts, and how many points each piece is worth
The rating is called the Public Protection Classification, or PPC, published by ISO, a Verisk business. Per ISO's own PPC pages, accessed August 2026, the scale runs 1 to 10, where "Class 1 generally represents superior property fire protection, and Class 10 indicates that the area's fire suppression program does not meet our minimum criteria."
The scoring instrument is the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule. ISO publishes the maximums: emergency communications 10 points, fire department 50, water supply 40, and community risk reduction 5.5, for 105.5 total. Inside the department's 50, personnel carry 15 and training 9. Inside water supply's 40, the supply system itself carries 30 and hydrant inspection and flow testing 7.
Emergency communications is the quiet category. Ten points ride on 911 service, telecommunicator performance and dispatch circuits, which is why the current fight over regional dispatch here is not a side story. On June 23, 2026, Cimarron Hills Fire Protection District issued a press release stating that the City of Colorado Springs had announced its intent to withdraw from the El Paso-Teller County 9-1-1 Authority effective June 22, 2026, a move the district said "de-regionalizes one of the most critical services."
Five road miles, one thousand feet, and the letters after the number
This is the mechanism. ISO's page on split classifications states that "the first number refers to the classification of properties within 5 road miles of a fire station and within 1,000 feet of a creditable water supply." The second number, carrying an X or a Y, "applies to properties within 5 road miles of a fire station but beyond 1,000 feet of a creditable water supply." Properties beyond five road miles get Class 10.
X and Y replaced the old 9 and 8B. ISO gives the conversion directly: a community formerly rated 6/9 is now 6/6X, and a former 6/8B is now 6/6Y. There is also a Class 10W, property-specific, applying in the five-to-seven-mile band around a responding station when the property sits within 1,000 feet of a creditable water supply.
Class 8B, per ISO, covers communities with strong fire protection and alarm facilities that "lack the water supply required for a PPC of Class 8 or better." Class 8 needs 250 gpm for two hours. Class 8B instead requires 200 gpm for 20 minutes, uninterrupted, beginning within five minutes.
Road miles, not straight-line miles. On a rural parcel with one gravel approach the two numbers can differ sharply, and the road number governs.
The El Paso County ratings I could actually source
ISO does not publish PPC ratings to the public for free. Its documents page says fire chiefs, chief building officials and community chief administrative officials may request a single free copy of the schedule. Homeowners are not on that list. So I publish only what a district publishes itself.
Falcon Fire Protection District states Class 3/10 effective February 1, 2017, with the Class 3 applying to residential property "within five road miles of any Falcon fire station or any of our neighboring Automatic Aid fire district stations," hydrant or no hydrant. Cimarron Hills states Class 2 effective July 1, 2022, and says the district "joins the 5% of agencies across the Country with a PPC of 2 or above." Black Forest Fire Rescue's FAQ, citing an August 2015 re-inspection, says "the District's ISO rating is 5 for properties within the district, ISO 4 for properties within the district and within 1000 feet of a fire hydrant."
For Monument Fire District, Colorado Springs Fire Department, Broadmoor, Stratmoor Hills, Security, Fountain, Hanover, Ellicott, Peyton, Calhan and Northeast Teller County, I found no current PPC published by the agency. I checked the Colorado Springs Fire Department's city page in August 2026 and it does not state one. I am not going to guess at any of them.
One correction worth making. Monument Fire District's 2025 Annual Report announces first-time accreditation through the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, and Fire Chief Andy Kovacs writes that "fewer than 1% of fire departments nationwide hold this distinction." That is a real credential. It is not an ISO rating, and a carrier does not price off it.
Water supply is the rural variable, and a hydrant is not the only answer
If you are buying on acreage, this is the section that matters. ISO treats a creditable suction point, a draft site, the way it treats a hydrant. Its alternative water supplies page says property within 1,000 feet of a creditable suction point may qualify for better than Class 9 when the building is within five road miles of a responding station and the community earns 20 percent credit or more under the schedule.
The bar is specific. A water delivery system "must be available 365 days a year and provide 250 gpm for a 2-hour duration within 5 minutes of the arrival of the first apparatus." For dry hydrants and suction supplies, ISO says it may require certification of the water available during a 50-year drought cycle from a state-certified professional. Tanker shuttle credit comes from a timeline analysis of fill rates, travel distance, drop tanks and setup, not from owning a tender.
I could not confirm which El Paso County districts hold ISO tanker shuttle accreditation. None of the rural district sites I reviewed in August 2026 publish it. Monument's annual report lists water tenders among its specialty resources, which is not the same thing. Ask the district.
The levy side of the same trade
Better protection usually costs more in property tax. Below are fire district levies from the El Paso County Treasurer's mill levy table for tax year 2025, payable 2026. Colorado assessed residential property for local government at 6.25% for tax year 2025, so a $600,000 house carries $37,500 of assessed value. The dollar column is my arithmetic, using the county's published levies and the state's published rate.
Fire district | TY2025 mills | Fire portion on a $600,000 house |
|---|---|---|
Stratmoor Hills | 22.975 | $861.56 |
Tri-Lakes Monument | 18.400 | $690.00 |
Cimarron Hills | 16.621 | $623.29 |
Black Forest | 15.650 | $586.88 |
Falcon | 14.886 | $558.23 |
Ellicott | 13.690 | $513.38 |
Calhan | 11.854 | $444.53 |
Peyton | 6.077 | $227.89 |
Broadmoor | 4.500 | $168.75 |
Stratmoor Hills to Peyton is a spread of $633.67 a year on identical assessed value. Two notes. There is no Donald Wescott line anymore, and no separate fire line for Colorado Springs or Fountain, because those are city departments funded through the city rather than taxing fire districts. Read the fire levy next to the rest of your bill, which I broke down in this post on what a Colorado Springs tax bill actually says.
The premium difference, and why I will not give you a percentage
I went looking for a defensible number and did not find one. ISO's page on how PPC affects individual policies says plainly: "Insurance companies, not us, establish the premiums they charge to policyholders." The strongest claim ISO makes is that "assuming all other factors are equal, the price of property insurance in a community with a good PPC is lower than in a community with a poor PPC." No table. No percentage.
Every specific figure I found traced back to insurance lead-generation sites with no disclosed methodology behind them. If a blog hands you a clean percentage for moving from Class 9 to Class 4, ask where the rate filing is. Carriers file their own factors, weight PPC differently, and some of the largest use proprietary models. Quote the actual address instead. Fire class is one input among several here, which is why I wrote separately about what actually drives homeowners insurance in this market.
What changed in this county between 2023 and 2026
Ratings and levies move under a buyer. Donald Wescott Fire Protection District and Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Protection District signed a partial-services contract in January 2022 and a full-service contract by July, then began operating under the unified name Monument Fire District. Our Community News reported in its January 4, 2025 edition that Wescott's dissolution order was expected on or around December 20, 2024. Monument's own history page says the consolidation was completed in 2025. Those accounts do not line up, and I am reporting both.
Cimarron Hills voters approved Ballot Issue 6A on November 4, 2025, enacting a 1% sales tax, by 1,832 to 1,078, or 62.96%, per the district's posted results. The district's notice to businesses says it took effect January 1, 2026. Black Forest Fire Rescue's FAQ says its last voter-approved increase was in 2018, from 9.215 to 14.5 mills, while the Treasurer's certified figure for tax year 2025 is 15.65. Ask the district to explain that gap before relying on either.
Where the FAIR Plan and the wildfire score come in
Briefly, because it is a separate subject. The Colorado FAIR Plan, created by HB23-1288 and writing residential policies since April 10, 2025, is the backstop when the private market declines you. It carries a $750,000 combined limit, pays actual cash value rather than replacement cost, requires three declinations, and is placed through licensed agents.
Separately, HB25-1182, signed May 28, 2025, requires insurers using wildfire risk models to disclose the score in plain language, run an appeal process and account for mitigation. Its general effective date on the Colorado General Assembly's bill page is July 1, 2026, and coverage of the phase-in through fall 2026 is inconsistent. Ask your agent which obligations bind your carrier today.
Four free lookups that answer this for one address
None of this requires a subscription. Twenty minutes, start to finish.
- Pull the parcel record. The El Paso County Assessor's property search at property.spatialest.com/co/elpaso lists the taxing entities for that parcel. If a fire protection district appears, you are in one. If none appears, that is your answer and it is a serious one.
- Check the boundary map. The Assessor's tax entity maps at assessor.elpasoco.com/tax-entity-maps include a fire protection districts section with a PDF boundary map for each of the county's twenty districts.
- Pull the levy. The Treasurer's page at treasurer.elpasoco.com/mill-levies lists every certified levy and offers the table as a spreadsheet.
- Call the district. Ask three questions: what is our current PPC and its effective date, how many road miles is this address from your nearest responding station, and is there a creditable water supply within 1,000 feet.
The limits are real. ISO does not sell ratings to homeowners, the parcel record shows the taxing district but not the class, and a published rating can be years stale, as Falcon's 2017 date and Black Forest's 2015 survey both show. Your insurance agent's quoting system usually carries the current class, and that is the fastest confirmation a buyer can get.
The pieces of this that stayed unverified
I could not confirm a current PPC for eleven of the agencies serving this county. I found no El Paso County fire protection district named Rocky Mountain on the county's tax entity list. I could not identify any district here with published ISO tanker shuttle accreditation. I could not find a county-published map of parcels sitting outside every fire district, which is why the parcel record is the test I use instead. And I found no sound published figure for the premium gap between classes.
The call I make before a client writes on a rural parcel
East of Falcon, in Black Forest, or on acreage anywhere in the county, I call the fire district during the inspection period and get the class, the road miles and the water supply answer in writing where I can. Then the buyer's insurance agent quotes the actual address, not the ZIP code, before objection deadline. If it prices out badly, that becomes a negotiation item or a walk. Day five beats final loan approval. Buyers arriving from out of state are often surprised how much geography sits inside a policy, which I touched on in the honest relocation guide.
Brandon Behr, REALTOR®, Behr & Behr Team, The Platinum Group, Realtors, Colorado Springs. I spend more time on levies and carrier quotes than most people expect from an agent, mostly because those two numbers decide whether a rural purchase pencils.
I am not an insurance agent, an underwriter, a tax professional or an attorney, and none of this is insurance, tax or legal advice. Verify a property's fire district and levy with the El Paso County Assessor and the El Paso County Treasurer, verify the Public Protection Classification with the serving fire district or your licensed insurance agent, and verify Colorado FAIR Plan eligibility and HB25-1182 obligations with the Colorado Division of Insurance. Ratings and levies change. Equal Housing Opportunity.
