Accessibility

Our Commitment

The Williamsville Fire Protection District serves everyone in our district, and that includes how we communicate. We are committed to making this website usable by people with disabilities — including people who use screen readers, navigate by keyboard, rely on captions, or need larger text or higher contrast.

This matters more than usual for a fire district. The information here includes burn regulations, safety guidance, and how to reach us. Nobody should be shut out of that.

The Standard We're Working Toward

We are working to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, Level AA — the technical standard adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice for state and local government websites under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

As a special district government, our compliance date under that rule is April 26, 2028. We are not waiting for the deadline; this site was rebuilt with accessibility in mind from the start, and we are treating conformance as ongoing work rather than a box to check.

We describe our status as partially conformant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA, which means most of the site meets the standard but we have not completed a full independent audit and some content may fall short.

What We've Done

• Built the site with semantic HTML so screen readers can interpret headings, lists, and landmarks correctly.
• Made the entire site navigable by keyboard, with visible focus indicators.
• Labeled every form field and associated each label with its input.
• Provided text alternatives for meaningful images, and marked decorative graphics so screen readers skip them.
• Chosen text and background colors intended to meet contrast requirements.
• Made the layout responsive, so it reflows without horizontal scrolling when zoomed or on small screens.
• Avoided flashing content and auto-playing media.
• Kept the site free of pop-ups, interstitials, and cookie banners.

Known Limitations

We would rather tell you where we fall short than pretend we don't:

• PDF documents. Meeting minutes, agendas, and similar records may be posted as PDFs that were scanned or produced without accessibility tagging. These may not be readable by screen readers. Contact us and we will provide the contents in an accessible format.
• Third-party content. We do not control the accessibility of our Facebook page or other external sites we link to.
• Ongoing review. We have not yet completed a formal third-party accessibility audit, so there are likely issues we have not found.

Alternate Formats and Accommodations

Any information on this website is available to you in another form. If a document is inaccessible, if you would like something read to you over the phone, or if you need a large-print or plain-text copy, just ask. We will provide it free of charge and as promptly as we can.

Every form on this site is optional. You can always join, notify us of a burn, or contact us by phone, mail, or in person at the station instead.

Report a Barrier

We treat accessibility problems as bugs and we want to hear about them. If you tell us what page you were on, what you were trying to do, and what got in the way, that helps us fix it faster — but report it however is easiest for you.

We aim to respond within five business days.

Your Rights Under the ADA

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by state and local government entities, including in how we communicate. If you believe the District has failed to provide access or has discriminated against you, you may contact us directly to resolve it — we would prefer to fix the problem ourselves.

You also have the right to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice at ada.gov, or by calling the ADA Information Line at (800) 514-0301 (TTY: (833) 610-1264). Contacting us first does not affect that right or any deadline for exercising it.