Featured Links

• Because it was the right thing to do. Conducting a comprehensive assessment and identifying areas where we could improve was a responsible course of action. Having a detailed evaluation for our use provides a basis for good decision making.
• Reassures the citizens we serve and ultimately protects their interest and investment in District services.
• Provides an internal and external review of the services we provide to the community.
• The promotion of excellence in our organization is an initiative that both management and labor are fully committed to. Accreditation was a recognized framework to guide this endeavor.
• Accreditation provides assurances to our stakeholders that we are doing a good job. Stakeholders in our organization include the citizens we serve, city/town governments, businesses, neighboring agencies and others.
• Accreditation allows us to showcase our capabilities and quality. Assessments of our agency have the transparency of external peer review.
• Fosters pride within our organization.
• Because the timing was right. Our organization has always focused on the most important task at hand. A pause in growth and other challenges at the time allowed for a top to bottom review of our current practices.
• Expanded the District’s organizational knowledge including its business operations.
• Assists us in maintaining our ISO rating; creates the environment to pursue a rating improvement and ensures the lowest fire insurance rates possible in the communities we protect.
• Provides a long-lasting shared knowledge of the organization and provides a foundation for sound succession management.
• Brought our membership together to build a better organization.
• Determined the District’s strengths, weaknesses, limitations and opportunities for improved service.
• Provided a method to analyze the services provided by the District and how best to deliver those services.

Are CFAI Accreditation and ISO Class (PPC) the same?
No. CFAI is the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. ISO is the Insurance Services Office. ISO ratings are somewhat limited in their application because they are related mostly to firefighting operations. As noted in the ISO’s Fire Suppression Rating Schedule, “The Schedule is a fire insurance rating tool and is not intended to analyze all aspects of a comprehensive public fire protection program. It should not be used for purposes other than insurance rating.”

CFAI accreditation takes a far broader look at an organization. Within the accreditation model are ten categories that fire agencies use as the basis to benchmark and evaluate performance. These categories are:

The ISO is a national insurance engineering service organization that assigns a public protection classification (PPC) to jurisdictions based on fire agency services. Insurance companies typically establish insurance rates for individual occupancies or groups of occupancies based on the PPC. PPCs are established using the ISO’s Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS). Once widely used by fire departments to evaluate system performance, the FSRS’s use is somewhat limited in that it only evaluates fire protection (not EMS or wildland fuel modification, for example). Also, the FSRS does not consider efficiency (e.g., how many resources are deployed in comparison to the number of actual calls). Though not as widely used today, ISO ratings are still appropriate to consider as part of a more comprehensive system performance review. Combined with other assessments, ISO standards are useful, but not by themselves.

To analyze a community’s fire protection, the ISO uses a grading system of 1 to 10. A community protection factor of 1 is the highest possible grade with insurance rates likely to be lowest for the community (ratings increase by 1 for every 10 credits, e.g., Class 1 = 90.00+ credits, Class 2 = 80.00–89.99, Class 3 = 70.00–79.99, etc.). A community with a Class 10 rating means that there essentially is no recognized fire protection system or availability of water for fire suppression. Only a very small number of communities with very effective water distribution systems and highly capable career fire departments are able to achieve a rating of 1. The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District is currently an ISO Class 2 and is vigorously pursuing a Class 1 PPC.

The three components evaluated by ISO in making a final determination of PPC are:

• Fire department: fire station locations, number of engines/trucks, staffing levels, training, etc. (50 percent)
• Water supply (40 percent)
• Emergency dispatching and communications (10 percent)

History of Accreditation in the District
In February, 2009 the Board of Directors of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District adopted the 2008-2013 Strategic Plan. At the heart of the plan was the goal to achieve Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) Accreditation. For nearly two years prior to the adoption of the Strategic Plan the District had been taking significant steps in anticipation of this goal.

By September, 2009 the District had assembled a large, diverse team of employees tasked with addressing the self-assessment requirements of the accreditation process. This team, ultimately comprised of more than 120 department members, completed their work in January, 2010. By all accounts the Self-Assessment Manual produced by this team was of exceptional quality and would serve the District well throughout the balance of the accreditation process and into the future.

Self-Assessment is a discovery process that provides the ability to evaluate programs and activities in relation to improving the quality of the organization by increasing the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of the District. There are 45 specific criterion used to sub-categorize the 244 Performance Indicators within the ten measured categories. 77 of the 244 Performance Indicators are Core Competencies and must be met without exception to achieve accreditation.

In December, 2009 the Board of Directors adopted the Standards of Cover – a key component and step in the accreditation process. The SOC provides a comprehensive, systematic and consistent way of looking at the emergency services provided by an agency.

After completing all requisite steps and providing all required documentation, including the 2008-2013 Strategic Plan, 2008-2013 Business Plan, 2009 Standards of Cover and 2010 Self-assessment Manual to the Commission, the District was elevated to Candidate Agency Status by the CFAI in January, 2010.

The District’s fully revised 2008-2013 Business Plan, designed to guide the implementation strategy developed to accomplish the vision and goals set forth in the 2008-2013 Strategic Plan, the 2009 Standards of Cover analysis and the Performance Indicator plans identified in the Self-Assessment Manual, was adopted by the Board of Directors on January 27, 2010.

During the week of May 10, 2010 a four-member CFAI Peer Assessment Team was on site to evaluate the District. You can read about this visit on Chief Price’s blog under the category Accreditation. At a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors on May 14, 2010 the Peer Assessment Team announced that the District will be recommended for international accreditation. After a unanimous vote of approval by the full Commission during a public hearing in Chicago on August 26, 2010 the District became the first agency in Contra Costa County and only the sixth fire department in the State of California to achieve international accreditation.