Springfield Fire Department reaccredited

(From the Springfield Fire Department)

The Springfield Fire Department was reaccredited March 12 by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International/Center for Public Safety Excellence for meeting the criteria established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment and accreditation program.

The department was first accredited in 2009 and achieved reaccreditation in 2014.

“Fewer than 1 percent of fire agencies worldwide are accredited,” said Fire Chief David Pennington. “Ten percent of the U.S. population is protected by an accredited fire service agency, and I am proud the citizens of Springfield are among those who are.”

Accredited agencies are often described as being community-focused, data-driven, outcome-focused, strategic-minded, well organized, properly equipped, and properly staffed and trained. The CFAI accreditation is a holistic model that assessed the department against 252 individual performance indicators, to include 85 core competencies, within 10 broad categories, which include:

Governance and Administration
Assessment and Planning
Goals and Objectives
Financial Resources
Programs
Physical Resources
Human Resources
Training and Competency
Essential Resources
External Systems Relationship.

While an on-going process, the preparation for reaccreditation began in September 2017 with the development of a new five-year community-focused Strategic Plan and was followed by an evaluation of community risk and how the department responds in development of the Community Risk Assessment/Standard of Cover.

The accreditation cycle is a five-year period, with annual compliance reports submitted to the CFAI.

According to its website, CFAI is dedicated to assisting the fire and emergency service agencies throughout the world in achieving excellence through self-assessment and accreditation in order to provide continuous quality improvement and the enhancement of service delivery to their communities. The CFAI process is voluntary, and provides an agency with an improvement model to assess their service delivery and performance internally and then works with a team of peers from other agencies to evaluate their completed self-assessment.