Accreditation and Plans

CFAI Accreditation

The Snoqualmie Fire Department holds Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) for meeting the criteria established through the CFAI’s voluntary self-assessment accreditation program. Some of the benefits achieved through accreditation are greater community alignment, encourages quality improvement, identifies areas of strength and weakness, allows for the establishment of a plan for improvement, provides for data-supported decision making, communicates management and leadership philosophies, encourages the development of organizational procedural documents, and ensures the agency has a defined mission and related objectives.

The fire department was first accredited in 2019. In 2024, the department began the process to seek re-accreditation. To be re-accredited, the department provided documentation on the continued adherence to over 250 performance indicators as well as conducted a peer team site visit in April to verify and validate the information. In August of 2024, a team of department members and city officials traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to seek confirmation of the re-accreditation. After presenting our case to the commission, the department was unanimously awarded accreditation for another five years. 

With it’s re-accreditation, Snoqualmie is one of only 312 agencies to achieve Internationally Accredited Agency status out of the more than 30,000 fire agencies internationally. It is in the top 1% of fire agencies to meet all specific accreditation criteria. There are only nine accredited agencies in Washington. Of those, Snoqualmie Fire is the first agency with combined volunteer and career fire fighters, whereas the other agencies’ use all career firefighters.

“The Snoqualmie Fire Department’s achievement of Accredited Agency status demonstrates its commitment to providing the highest quality of service to our community,” said former Mayor Katherine Ross.  

“One of our organization’s core values is to gain public trust by providing exceptional levels of service to those we serve,” said Fire Chief Mike Bailey “This value is validated by the Center for Public Safety Excellence and we are extremely proud of this accomplishment. Being accredited is a department-wide effort with support from city administration and City Council. We could not have been this successful without all of these groups involved.”

The Commission on Fire Accreditation International is dedicated to assisting the fire and emergency service agencies throughout the world in achieving excellence through self-assessment and accreditation to provide continuous quality improvement and enhancement of service delivery to their communities. The program is voluntary and provides an agency with an improvement model to assess its service delivery and performance internally, and then works with a team of peers from other agencies to evaluate its completed self-assessment.

Fire Department Plans

The Snoqualmie Fire Department, in partnership with the CPSE Technical Advisor Program, has constructed a new five-year strategic plan to will help the department focus its efforts on goals and priorities to operate effectively; avoid distractions and disruptions for greatest efficiencies; and, ultimately, achieve its vision by working at the highest levels to meet the needs of the Snoqualmie community.