NEWS ADVISORY
Steven E. Lohr, Fire Chief
Public Safety Headquarters, 100 Edison Park Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20878
@MCFirePIO
Determine community risk and safety needs; Evaluate the performance of the department; and Establish a method for achieving continuous organizational improvement
Accreditation is recognized worldwide as a measure of excellence in the fire service. The accreditation process is a detailed and rigorous one, and achieving re-accreditation in Montgomery County was a total team effort, said Fire Chief Steve Lohr. Our staff has worked diligently to meet and exceed the most stringent standards and the highest benchmarks in public safety. The award is not a culmination but a blueprint for the future and validates our efforts to provide world-class emergency services in Montgomery County.
About the Commission The Commission on Fire Accreditation International is governed by eleven members representing a cross-section of the fire service industry, including fire departments, city and county management, code councils, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the International Association of Fire Fighters. The full Commission meets biannually to review all agencies applying for accredited status. The 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 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. Additional information about the Commission can be found at http://www.publicsafetyexcellence.org/. ###