Western
Pennsylvania Fireman's Association
Serving the fire service of tomorrow. . . today!!
We are an organization consisting
of approximately 10,000 firefighters, both volunteer and paid, from nearly
500 different fire companies throughout the
Read the latest edition of
The Western Gazette
our monthly newsletter and meeting notice.
(You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Visit Our Document Library
To see why YOU should be a member, click here.
Contact Information:
(724) 339-1017
To view a list of meeting dates for our Association, click here.
To view the list of member departments that belong to our organization, click here.
To download a page of applications for membership (three per page), click here.
To download a copy of the claim form for death benefits, click here.
Scholarship Application and Rules Now Available!
Visit our Document Library for more information..
Announcing
On-Line Courses
Available Through
The Western PA
Firemen’s Association
In partnership with ed2go, a leading provider
of instructor-facilitated online training, our association is pleased to make
over 300 non-credit courses available to our members, their families, their
friends, and the community. These are
the same on-line continuing and community education courses offered by many
community colleges, such as the Community College of Allegheny County and
Our classes are:
Six
weeks in length, two classes each week
Instructor-Facilitated
Available
24 hours a day
Available
anywhere you have an Internet Connection
To complete the class, you must:
Read
the course material on-line
Complete
assignments and submit them electronically
Interact
with others in your class via message boards
Complete
a series of online quizzes
Complete
an on-line final exam
Once you successfully complete all of the
requirements, you will receive a Certificate of Completion in your name,
attesting to 24 hours of instruction.
To learn more about this exciting new
program, go to our online training site:
WPFA Online Instruction Center
Pennsylvania Fire Training Weekends and Seminars
For a listing of programs being offered, click here.
Visit our
Training Directory
Which lists fire service classes throughout the Commonwealth.
To get your class listed, e-mail jfireman15@aol.com
Western Association Becomes
Delmar Book Distributor
The association
is now a distributor for Thomson-Delmar emergency services publications. Several of the Delmar publications are
currently being used in various fire service classes throughout the
commonwealth, and the state fire academy is changing the manual for the
essentials program to the Delmar publishing Firefighters Handbook on
After careful
investigation, the association believes it can offer the fire service yet
another benefit of membership in the association by providing discounted
pricing off of the list price of the books.
The discount schedule is based on the type of membership an individual
or fire company has in the association.
Below is the discount schedule:
|
Type of Member |
Discount Percentage |
|
Non-member or purchase through community college |
15% |
|
$10 Company Member (purchased by company with company check) |
20% |
|
100 Percent Company (purchased by company with company check) or Individual member purchasing a single copy |
25% |
As part of the
program, the association will pay any standard shipping costs. Special shipping considerations for rush
orders will, of course, be the finanical responsibility of the person
purchasing the books. We will also have a
small stock of books in the association office which will be available for
delivery to the regular monthly meetings.
Books will be available for purchase from this stock on a “rush” basis
for an additional handling fee. We have
obtained a sales tax license, as all purchases by anyone other than a fire
company would be subject to Pennsylvania Sales Tax. Fire departments or companies purchasing
manuals will be able to file an exemption form with the association to be
exempt from the sales tax. We are also
in the process of obtaining an account to accept credit cards as payment for
book purchases.
Book purchases can be made by contacting the association office at 724-339-1017, or by e-mailing us your request and a way to contact you.
For more information on the Delmar Manuals, click here.
Association Announces Scholarship Program
The association
has begun another great benefit of membership that companies can use as a
recruitment and retention tool–we’ve begun a scholarship program to provide
financial assistance, on a competitive basis, to members of the
association. Included with this
newsletter are copies of the rules for the program, along with a copy of the
formal application. Feel free to make copies
of these documents and distribute them to your members who are pursuing
post-secondary education, or members who have children who are pursuing
post-secondary education.
As of this
moment, the association has financial commitments from sponsors which enable us
to make the following awards: two $600 awards to individuals pursuing bachelors
degrees, and two $300 awards to those pursuing associate degrees. We are continuing to attempt to obtain more
funding so we can sponsor more scholarships.
The scholarship committee will review the applications, which must be
submitted by the June meeting of the association. Winners will be announced at the annual
convention.
For the application and guidelines, visit
our Document Library.
Western Re-Establishes E-Mail List
The association is attempting to establish an online e-mail directory for firefighters to be able to contact members from other companies. If you wish to be listed on the e-mail contact page, please send an e-mail to jfireman15@aol.com. Tom Reighard, Jr., will be maintaining the listing for us. In order to be listed, you must submit an e-mail to him requesting to be listed which includes your full name and the name of the fire company or department to which you belong.
To view the current e-mail list, click here.
SR 60 Committee Produces Final Report
The SR 60 Committee, which was charged by the General
Assembly to create a list of issues facing the fire service in
SR
60 Report Final Copy
Review Current Legislation before
the
General Assembly of the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/billroom.htm
State Auditor General Publishes
Relief Association Audit Findings
On the Web
While surfing the net looking for links to add to our page (please see the links section below), we stumbled across the Auditor General's site related to the audits of Fire Department Relief Associations. We felt you should be aware that they are publishing their audit findings on the web--for anyone to see. The findings of the audits have always been open to the public--that is the purpose of the audits--to ensure the public that the monies are being spent properly. However, these findings have never been so acceessable to the public. We encourage you to check out this page, and remember: Keep your house in order!!!
State Auditor General's Office Fire Audits Page
Our Committees:
We also have a large number of committees to serve you, including, but not limited to:
Topic Committee: Arranges for informative topic presentations at the monthly meetings.
Awards Committee: Sponsors an awards program at the annual convention to recognize members and non-members for service and deeds of valor.
Fire Prevention Committee: Sponsors a fire prevention essay contest for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in the schools served by our member companies. Winners receive savings bonds, certificates, and citations from the legislature of the Commonwealth.
Sports Committee: Organizes sporting events, including a golf outing, battle of the barrel, and other contests during our convention.
