Fire Department Undergoes Accreditation Review

The Summit Fire Department is hosting a team of peer assessors this week in the hopes of being only the second fire department in New Jersey to be accredited.

The accreditation process is long and arduous, but according to team leader Terry Lewis, a firefighter in Kentucky, is one that is extremely rewarding.

The purpose, he said, is to engage in a process of self-assessment and self-improvement.

"Through this process, they're going to prove what they're made of," Lewis said.

Interest in becoming accredited was begun eight or nine years ago when current City Administrator Chris Cotter was fire chief. Now, under the leadership of Chief Joseph Houck, the department is finally being considered for accrediation. 

"Fire Service Accreditation is a challenging and rewarding process," Houck said in an e-mail.

Peer assessors are in Summit to "review and validate" the department's self-assessment where it reviews its own performance in all categories of the organization.

Lewis said that all organizations need to meet more than 70 core competency areas in order to be accredited, things such as programs for fire suppression, prevention and investigation and response times. 

There are only 135 accrediated fire departments in the nation and to be accrediated, each department is compared not only to its neighbors, but to departments nationwide.

The benefits of accreditation are an affirmation that each department is using industry-best practices, the international recognition of this excellence and the accountability to remain credible through a peer-developed process.

Accreditation is only good for five years and therefore a department must reapply.

But it's truly the self-assessment that Lewis said brings the most value because it forces a department to look at things they wouldn't normally evaluate and identify organizational weaknesses.

"You get out of your comfort level and see how you measure up," said Tom Walsh, another of the peer assessors.

And Lewis, who says he's averaged approximately two peer reviews for the last years, said the Summit fire department really got into the self-assessment process.

"I don't know that I have seen a group as brutally honest with themselves as I've seen with this group," he said. "It's refreshing."

The four-person peer assessor team will finish its review and leave Summit on Thursday.