It looks like High River is safe, thanks to a thorough study completed on the fire department, water system, fire safety control and fire service communications.

The town's insurance underwriters are contracted to complete a report every ten years, and since 2005 the fire department has maintained a commercial protection classification of 5 and has improved their dwelling protection to class 1.

Fire Chief Len Zebedee says the report shows the department is making progress.

"Anytime that you're moving from a 3A or a 3B up to a 1 means you're going in the right direction, you're doing a lot of the right things as in inspections and fire prevention programs and that sort of thing. So it's good to see progress, that we're moving forward."

Zebedee says there are some things they'll work on improving.

"Fire pre-planning for buildings, which is kind of all part and parcel of the inspection, but it is to have pre-plans build for most commercial buildings in town to how we would deal with that large structure in teh event of a fire."

He says the report gave them some things to look at and plan for the future.

"There's certainly some recommendations within the report that we'll work towards over the next 5-10 years. Some of it's going to be a budgetary item, so those have to be approved by council. I believe there is an opportunity to do better. We'll work on those areas that we can improve and make it a whole lot better for the community and safer."

Zebedee says it was an excellent study and the upgrades to the water treatment plant and water system contributed to their success.