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News | April 19, 2016

DLA Installation Support at Susquehanna F&ES awarded international reaccreditation status

By DLA Distribution Public Affairs DLA Distribution Public Affairs

DLA Installation Support at Susquehanna, Pa., Fire and Emergency Services has received Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International for meeting the criteria established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment and accreditation program.  DLA is one of over 200 agencies to achieve Internationally Accredited Agency status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc.

All four DLA fire departments, including other locations at San Joaquin, Calif., Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio, are accredited for the second five-year cycle.  The Department of Defense now has about 50 fire departments that have obtained this status.  Worldwide, there are about 220 accredited fire departments.

CFAI is dedicated to assisting 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 work with a team of peers from other agencies to evaluate their completed self-assessment.

“The achievement of Accredited Agency status demonstrates the commitment of the agency to provide the highest quality of service to our community,” said Susquehanna fire chief Henry C. Hoffman Jr.  “We have been able to use the Commission on Fire Accreditation International’s process as a proactive mechanism to plan for the future and locate areas where we can improve on the quality of the services we provide.” 

It was noted during the self-assessment that Susquehanna’s response times are well below the national average.  The peer assessment team also noted that the continuous quality improvement model is engrained in the day-to-day operations of the department.   

There are 236 performance indicators in the self-assessment manual that the department assessed and evaluated.  Training chief Fred Smith served as the accreditation manager and coordinated all of the activities for the 2011-2015 cycle.  

“Each of the 42 members of the department played a significant role on the accreditation process,” concluded Hoffman.