BOULDER CITY – Three years after starting a challenging process, the Boulder City Fire Department (BCFD) received Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) for meeting the criteria established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment and accreditation program. BCFD is one of more than 300 agencies to achieve Internationally Accredited Agency status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc. (CPSE).
Boulder City is only the third fire department in the state to achieve this status, joining Henderson Fire Department and Naval Air Station Fallon Fire & Emergency Services. CFAI is dedicated to assisting the fire and emergency service agencies throughout the world in achieving excellence through self-assessment and accreditation 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. “This achievement demonstrates the commitment of the agency to provide the highest quality of service to our community,” said Taylor Tedder, City Manager of Boulder City. “I’m proud of this great accomplishment and of the men and women who serve our residents and visitors.”
“We have also used the Commission on Fire Accreditation International’s process as a proactive mechanism to plan for the future of this agency and locate areas where we can improve on the quality of the services we provided,” said Fire Chief Will Gray. “The model was also used to develop the department’s first community risk assessment and standard of coverage, which identifies the risks unique to our community.”
Accreditation could not have been accomplished without the efforts of the entire department. The accreditation team consisted of Fire Chief Will Gray, Deputy Fire Chief Greg Chesser, Accreditation Manager, Captain Nigel Walton, Fire Analyst Sarah Mitre-Hall, and Firefighters Josh Barrone, Nick Giles, Carl Ford, Alex Zoukas and Harold Hadley.
In February, BCFD was a runner-up for the Cashman Good Government Award, for using ARPA funds to create a CPR/AED program with Boulder City businesses.
###