The City of Naperville has announced that the Naperville Fire Department was unanimously accredited for a fourth time by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International and the Center for Public Safety Excellence. In addition, the Board of Directors from the Center for Public Safety Excellence designated the department as a “Legacy Agency” for being one of only three fire departments in the world to be accredited for 15 consecutive years.
The Legacy Award is scheduled to be shared with the Naperville City Council at its Tuesday, September 4 meeting beginning at 7PM in Council Chambers of the Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St.
The Naperville Fire Department has been internationally accredited through the Commission on Fire Accreditation International and the Center for Public Safety Excellence since 1997. Prior to that time, the department volunteered to be a beta test site to aid the commission in developing and building internationally accepted benchmarks and performance indicators for fire and emergency service delivery.
Since then, the Naperville Fire Department, through the support of the Naperville City Council, has strived to maintain international accreditation and was among the first five departments of the nearly 30,000 municipal fire departments in the U.S. to undergo and achieve this status.
Greensboro, North Carolina and Tempe, Arizona are the two other departments besides Naperville to be recommended for accreditation four consecutive times. Once received, the accreditation status is valid for a five-year period and includes submittal of annual compliance measures and updates to current acceptable benchmarks.
“Fire accreditation is much more than a plaque received or a few nice words stated at a formal event,” Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said. “It is the means by which our department operates. Through accreditation, we create the plans and processes that meet the service expectations established and expected by our City Council, our residents and our businesses. More than ever, our department is committed to maintaining what it has worked so hard to achieve for the past 15 years and continues to look at ways to provide the highest quality of service in the most efficient matter to our community.”
The Commission on Fire Accreditation International is a joint commission made up of members from various associations representing both public and private industry, including the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).
