County Fire & Emergency Services Earns International Accredited Status

Press release from CCFES:

March 6, 2023

Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services (CCFES) has received Accredited Agency status with the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) for meeting the criteria established through CFAI’s voluntary self assessment and accreditation program. CCFES is one of approximately 300 agencies in the world to achieve Internationally Accredited status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc. (CPSE).

“The department’s achievement of Accredited Agency status demonstrates the commitment of CCFES to provide the highest quality of service to the citizens and visitors of Cherokee County and beyond,” said Fire Chief Eddie Robinson. “We have been able to use the CFAI accreditation process as a mechanism to plan for the future of our department and identify areas where we can improve the quality of service we provide.”

“While our accreditation team had an instrumental role in this accomplishment, none of it would be possible without the hard work and dedication of the women and men that report to our fire stations every day to provide the best service possible to our wonderful community,” Robinson said.

With more than 600 fire departments in the state of Georgia, CCFES is the 14th to achieve this status and only the fourth county-based fire department in the state following Cobb County Fire & Emergency Services, Clayton County Fire & Emergency Services, and Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services.

“This is a great day for Cherokee County and its fire department,” said Cherokee County Commission Chairman Harry Johnston. “They began a journey in 1998 to move from an
almost all-volunteer force to become a fully professional and truly excellent department. The international accreditation received today officially recognizes them as one of the most elite departments in the nation and even in the world. And it puts them on a firm path to continue
building toward even greater excellence. We all join in thanking and congratulating Chief Eddie Robinson, former Chief Tim Prather, and the entire Cherokee Fire & Emergency Services team for making this tremendous achievement on our behalf,” Johnston said.

CFAI 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 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.

For more information about the accreditation process, visit CPSE website here: https://www.cpse.org/accredita...

Front row: Division Chief Dean Floyd, Battalion Chief Ricky Collett, Cherokee County Manager Geoff Morton, Cherokee County Commission Chairman Harry Johnston, Division Chief Chad Davis, Lieutenant Randy Fifield

Back row: Battalion Chief Marc Liscio, Battalion Chief Chad Arp, Battalion Chief Cheri Collett, Executive Assistant Katie Erwin, Fire Chief Eddie Robinson, CFAI Commission Chair Steve Dirksen, Deputy Chief Shane West, Deputy Chief Kevin Lanier, Battalion Chief Nate Sullivan, Division Chief Mark Orr

This press release was produced by CCFES. The views expressed here are the author's own.