The Town of High River received a comprehensive report on their fire protection services, and it looks like they're saving almost $450,000 a year in insurance by maintaining a Public Fire Protection Class 5.

These consulting services are contracted every ten years, and Mayor Craig Snodgrass says the town's level of protection stands out.

"It is important for insurance purposes, not just for the town but for every residence that these insurance companies know that our fire protection services are the best in the province."

He says fire protection is improtant, but improvements can be very costly.

"There's always ways of improving these things that insurance companies always want you to. It usually has a massive cost implication to it though, so we always try to balance that out as to where the cost benefit is to these things."

Snodgrass says the town needs to balance the importance of fire protection with the costs.

"Fire protection is not a cheap thing to have in town. It's extremely important as everybody knows after the Manor fire and the job those guys did. So, it's important to have it but there's a balance there as well."

The fire protection report analyzed the town's fire department, water system, fire safety control and emergency communications. Since 2005 the town has maintained a Public Fire Protection Class 5. While the commercial protection has stayed the same over the years, the dwelling protection has improved from semi-protected, Class 3B, and is now fully protected as Class 1.