was organized as the ‘Southern Wisconsin & Northern Illinois Firemen's Association’ in 1915. At that time it was comprised of twelve fire departments in the southwestern region of Wisconsin and the northwestern region of Illinois.
The goal was to bring these fire departments from both states together for the exchange of ideas, operations, and mutual aid. Annual Conventions, hosted by a different member each year, were held to forward these goals and to conduct Association business and elections. The Annual Convention also featured one or more nationally known speakers. These speakers were virtually a Who's Who within the nation's fire service.
On Sunday, September 10, 1937, the Association held its first ‘School of Firemanship’ in New Glarus, Wisconsin, with 60 firefighters in attendance. The membership of the Association at that time was twenty-one fire departments. For the next twenty-three years, the ‘Fall Fire School’ was hosted by different fire departments in both Wisconsin and Illinois. On September 18, 1960, the Annual Fire School was moved to the Green County Fairgrounds in Monroe, Wisconsin, it has been in Monroe WI, ever since.
In 1980, the Association’s Fire School was expanded to include classes on Saturday. In 1998, the Fire School was further expanded to include a third day, Friday, when a National Fire Academy class was held on Friday and Saturday. 2005 marked the last year that the Sunday afternoon grandstand demonstrations were held. After years of this being one of the centerpieces of the Fire School, as the number of classes offered and number of students attending steadily rose for the three days of classes, the Sunday afternoon demonstration attendance declined as students and other attendees opted to instead visit the vendor exhibitions—or to go home after being thoroughly worn out by the live-fire and other hands-on classes.
2020 will mark the 84th consecutive year of the Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois Fire/Rescue Association’s Annual Fire School and will be in Janesville WI