Montgomery Fire/Rescue received Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) on March 22, 2022.  The criteria for International Accreditation are established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment and accreditation program and require departments to present validated and measurable response, operational, management, training, and Community Risk Reduction evidence to demonstrate they meet the Center for Public Safety Excellence standards. 

Projects that had to be completed to achieve this accomplishment included:

• Ensuring that data on incident types was satisfactory, well-tracked, and accurate. This was possible because MFR has been collecting quality data and reporting to the Federal Government’s NFIRS system since 2012.
• The elements of the community risk assessment for the City of Montgomery had to be developed and then deployed. This included a close examination of all potential risks to the City of Montgomery and a separate examination of the fire risk by occupancy type.
• MFR was required to develop the department’s Standards of Cover. This document is an evaluation of all the components of response times from the time it takes to answer a 911 call to getting sufficient units out of the station and on the scene to handle each potential incident. This review includes a 5-year quality improvement plan to ensure we are always improving.
• A five-year strategic plan was developed that required support by and in coordination with the City Council and Mayor’s office.
• A daunting 400-plus page self-assessment of everything MFR does had to be prepared and reviewed and edited many times with a mentor assigned by the Center for Public Safety Excellence (CPSE).
• Finally, once all documents were prepared, a team of 4 fire service professionals from around the country completed a 45-day peer review of MFR’s documents. After the 45 days were up and the team determined they were satisfied that all of the documents met CPSE standards, a site visit was arranged. The team visited Montgomery from January 10-13, 2022, to examine and validate MFR’s supporting documentation and to review the City of Montgomery and all MFR facilities, apparatus, and equipment.

On January 13, 2022, the team leader, Chief Jim White, informed Fire Chief Jordan that their assessment showed that MFR excelled in meeting the standard for accreditation and that they would recommend MFR receive Accreditation status to the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). On March 22, 2022, Chief Jordan and his staff appeared before the Commission and answered a series of questions, following which the Commission unanimously granted MFR international accreditation for a period of 5 years.

CFAI is dedicated to assisting 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.

MFR is one of the current 301 agencies to achieve Internationally Accredited Agency status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc. (CPSE), and the first metropolitan fire department in the State of Alabama to achieve this status. Additionally, MFR is now one of only 114 fire departments in the United States that are both Internationally Accredited and have an ISO Class “1” rating, an achievement that less than one-quarter of one percent of fire departments can claim. In 2024, MFR further demonstrated its commitment to excellence by becoming accredited by the Commission on the Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS), joining only 17 departments in the world that are ISO Class 1 rated, CFAI and CAAS accredited.

Montgomery Fire/Rescue’s achievement of Accredited Agency status demonstrates the commitment of Montgomery Fire/Rescue to provide the highest quality of service to the citizens and visitors of this great city. Through the Accreditation process, MF/R has been able to use this as a self-assessment process as a means to plan for the future to ensure we improve on the quality of the service the department provides.

Community Risk Assessment & Standards of Cover

Strategic Plan