March 10th, 2026
News release prepared by:
Deputy Chief Cory Horsens
The Missoula Rural Fire District (MRFD) 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. MRFD is one of more than 300 agencies to achieve Internationally Accredited agency status with the CFAI and the Center for Public Safety Excellence, Inc. (CPSE)
By reaching this milestone, MRFD joins the City of Bozeman Fire Department as only the second fire and EMS agency in Montana to be awarded accredited status.
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 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.
Fire Chief Paul Finlay stated that the agency’s achievement of Accredited Agency status “demonstrates the commitment of the agency to provide the highest quality of service to our community.” Finlay also said, “We have also been able to use the Commission on Fire Accreditation International’s process as a proactive mechanism to plan for the future of this agency and locate areas where we can improve on the quality of the services we provided.”
Please direct any questions regarding this media release to Fire Chief Paul Finlay: (406) 549-6172 or pfinlay@mrfdfire.org.