City of Fort Myers Fire Department awarded international accreditation status

The City of Fort Myers Fire Department 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. The Fort Myers Fire Department is one of more than 300 agencies to achieve internationally Accredited Agency status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence.

The City of Fort Myers Fire Department is the third agency in Lee County to become accredited. There are 19 fire districts and departments in Lee County with 27,065 fire departments in the National Fire Department Registry.

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 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 verify and validate their completed self-assessment.

City of Fort Myers Fire Chief Tracy McMillion stated that the agency’s achievement of Accredited Agency status “demonstrates the commitment of the department to be properly equipped, staffed and trained.”  McMillion also said, “We have been able to use the Commission on Fire Accreditation International’s process as a proactive mechanism to plan for the future and identify ways to continuously enhance services.”

Timelines for achieving Accredited Agency status vary based on the organization’s capabilities, team size, expertise and overall commitment to the process. The Fort Myers Fire Department initiated the processes required for peer review in 2024.