Mission Statement

“Providing life safety through education, enforcement and fire prevention”

Bureau Purpose, Procedures, and the Customers We Serve

Our primary objective is to reduce injury and the loss of life, frequency and severity of fires, explosions, and hazardous material incidents.

As such we work in partnership with fire suppression crews, community businesses, contractors, architectural and engineering firms to promote and maintain a safe and desirable living and working environment. We meet daily with city and county staff members to create continuity between the Unified Fire Authority and each member of the Fire District.
To accomplish this, we focus primarily on the following tasks.

We administer a fire inspection / code enforcement program that offers interpretive guidance for the citizens, businesses and communities we serve. To date we have over sixty individual sections in our “Code Interpretations Manual”.

We work in conjunction with businesses, neighborhood associations, residents, and other agencies to identify and address fire and emergency service concerns within the community. This often results in personal one-on-one meetings with our most valued customer, the tax payer!

We initiate special programs to address specific fire and life safety risks. In doing so we “target special hazards” so that our time is used more efficiently.

We monitor public assemblies and community events to ensure safe means of egress and access for emergency services is maintained.

We believe in a “productive plan review process”. In so doing we reach out to those who build the community. Our fire prevention and inspection staff meet daily with members of our community to accomplish this task. Construction drawings and architectural plan review requires a detailed knowledge of the code, building construction and engineering principles.

Legal Environment

Our fire and life safety responsibilities require a close working relationship with the UFA Chief Legal Officer. Providing concise, accurate and definitive code judgment requires communication at many levels. Therefore the UFA Code Enforcement Bureau regularly sits in council with those who administer the process necessary to protect the fire department and the district.

IFC 104.1 General.

The fire code official is hereby authorized to enforce the provisions of this code and shall have the authority to render interpretations of this code, and to adopt policies, procedures, rules and regulations in order to clarify the application of its provisions.

IFC 103.4.1 Legal defense.

Any suit instituted against any officer or employee because of an act performed by that officer or employee in the lawful discharge of duties and under the provisions of the Fire Code shall be defended by the legal representative of the jurisdiction until the final termination of the proceedings.