Please remember in your thoughts and prayers lifetime members Frank Czak and Stush Hilinski who passed away in 2008.
Members Wanted The Sharps Hill VFD is always looking for members. Your help is needed. Even those who have no desire to fight fires and respond to emergencies are needed. Consider helping your community, any help you can offer is welcome. If you are interested, stop at the station any Tuesday night during training or call 412-781-1226 and leave a message.
What's New On The Hill The 2009 fire officers met on the first Tuesday of the year to discuss goals and objectives for the upcoming year. These goals and objectives will be discussed and shared with the membership at the upcoming monthly meeting. We received word that we were awarded a portion of our total request from the Volunteer Fire Company/Volunteer EMS Company Grant Program. This grant is administered thru the State Fire Commissioners Office. The training room renovation has almost been completed, work still needs to be done on purchasing some additional audio visual components and mounting of the data projector and dry erase boards. Chris has done an outstanding job of supervising the work, many thanks to him for his hard work. The VOLUNTEER RESPONDER RETENTION AND RECRUITMENT TAX CREDIT was passed into law and rules have been written on who will qualify for a $100 tax break from the Commonwealth, information can be found at this web site
Volunteer Tax Credit2008 Statistics posted Preliminary 2008 statistics are posted on the front page. Additional info will be posted shortly.
2009 Fund Drive Thanks to all who have supported our past annual fund drives. The 2009 fund drive has been sent out to the residents.
Fund Raising Great job by the spaghetti dinner chairman Jerry and his wife Joyce as well as all the others who helped and supported this event. Look for information on an event with Shaler Villa to happen in August. Additional fund raising events will be posted as that information is finalized.
Meeting Dates 2009 Sharps Hill Monthly meeting will be held April 28th and the May meeting is on the 26th. All meetings begin at 7pm. Shaler Township Meetings are held the 3rd Monday of each month at 8pm. Cherry City will be hosting the April meeting, Elfinwild will host the May 18th meeting. Lower Valley meeting is at Mt Troy on April 1st.
Upcoming Training and Education for 2009
The officers have sent up an aggressive first half of the year with the 24 hour HazMat Operations class followed by ProBoard certifications in HazMat Awareness and Operations. These classes will be followed by First Aid CPR training that meets the requirement for Firefighter I certification. a Firefighter I prep will be held shortly after that. Once all training is completed members not already certified will be testing to the Firefighter I level. Check the postings at the station for all local and national level training/educational opportunities.
Equipment News Squad 1 has been delivered and has been placed into service, the stripping, tow hitch and auto-eject battery conditioner were installed and placed into service with the radio designation of Squad 1. Squad 2 had the install of back up camera, and auto-eject battery conditioner completed. C-2 has been working diligently to schedule everything. Additional air hose has been added to the trailer to now give us a total of 250 feet on the cord reel. Air Trailer reel has been outfitted with all possible adapters including the rapid intervention connection. We now have the resources to fill SCUBA bottles, SCBA bottles, and also SCBA systems on vehicles and fixed systems all via the high pressure cord reel on the front of the air trailer. During recent training we were able to use the air reel to refill bottles without members having to remove their bottle. We also added a portable frag tank to Squad 2, this tank will allow us to remotely fill bottles.
Ladies Auxiliary The Auxiliary is selling raffle tickets to be drawn on Easter Sunday, contact any member for additional information.
Grant News
The officers and members submitted a list to the Office of the State Fire Commissioner grant. We were awarded grant money that will be used to upgrade SCBA. This will be the last of the SCBA that needs to be replaced. We will now have the latest model SCBA for all vehicles. A new entrance door into the vehicle garage is also part of the award. Previous grant money was used for new self contained breathing apparatus and a ventilation saw. These items will enhance firefighter safety on the fire ground. These items were placed into service following training and education.
In 2003 we received a grant for an air trailer and thermal imaging camera. The air trailer arrived on August 2nd and is a welcome addition. It has the capabilities to refill air bottles at the station and if necessary can be used at the scene of an emergency incident. It is dual drive which means it can operate on either diesel or electric. It has four ASME 6000psi bottles for storage. It was purchased thru Bob Beatty of O Ring and Associates.
In 2002 we received a FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) for bunker gear which allowed us to outfit all of our frontline firefighters with state of art 100% NFPA compliant equipment. The equipment was purchased thru JD Klosky.