Mayor Presents Fire Chief with Award of Excellence

Mayor Stimpson presented Mobile Fire-Rescue Chief Mark Sealy with the distinguished Award of Excellence for achieving an ISO-1 rating for the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department (MFRD), the best in the country. This is only the second time the Mayor has given this award to an individual that has served the City of Mobile through public office.

“Chief Sealy is the epitome of a servant leader,” said Mayor Stimpson. “During the quest to ISO-1, Chief Sealy never made it about himself or a select few, but he made it about the City of Mobile. His strong leadership led us to reach this major milestone.”

In November, the Insurance Services Office (ISO) classified  MFRD as one of the top departments nationwide. Every fire department is rated between 1 to 10 with 1 being the best. Only 320 out of 44,000 departments have an ISO-1 rating. In previous years, MFRD received an ISO-3 rating.

To achieve this top rating, MFRD worked for over a year and a half to inspect 11,000 businesses, 14,000 fire hydrants and 90 schools ensuring the safety of Mobile’s homes, workforce and school children. Per ISO standards, each rank within MFRD had specific annual continuing education requirements that had to be verified. To meet these high standards, MFRD conducted over 85,000 hours of general training and 3,500 hours of specialized training across all ranks and positions within the department.