This is a question for the surrounding suburbs and rural areas of WNY - or really anywhere. I moved within a half mile of a volunteer fire department. I want to say right off the bat - I've got family and friends who are volunteer fire fighters and I respect their work highly. I am thankful for them and I appreciate what they do.

But my local fire department uses its siren for seemingly any emergency 24/7. At first it was annoying but it is what it is. But then when you wake up and you realize you can't go back to sleep you start to wonder, well, is the siren absolutely necessary? It's WW2 technology, what else do we use in 2024 that's WW2 technology that wakes the entire community? So I ask a neighbor what she does... She said she sleeps with earplugs in!

So the other night went the siren went off twice within 10 minutes at 2 something AM I emailed the fire chief who told me they were having a meeting that night and he'd get back to me on my concern. He ends telling me that paging and texting still "isn't 100%" and so they have to keep the siren. So I start looking in on this issue online and it appears many states don't use an air siren at all and those that do tend to be in upstate NY and PA in particular. It also turns out that this can become a HIGHLY contentious issue.

There's very little journalistic reporting on this topic surprisingly even though it's clearly something that impacts the community significantly. This article shares one town's battle to turn it off after it hadn't worked for 7 years and they still had a 100% response rate. Many people rush to the defense of the volunteers needing the siren claiming something along the lines that they are so preoccupied with very noisy activities or they don't have one of their devices nearby that the siren saves the day.

But respectfully I have to question this logic when it is between the hours of 10pm and 7am. Or when it is a non emergency where lives aren't at stake. My understanding from my local chief is that the call into the station automatically triggers the alarm. When I ask my friend who is a volunteer firefighter in a different town he says his chief would say the same thing but insinuated very carefully that while he's not saying there is a better system out there that many volunteers are resistant to change. This is also a theme I have seen online.

I'm not looking for a fight but I am thinking about taking this to the next level and want to know what other local towns do that at the very least don't sound their alarms during sleeping hours. If your town has turned off their siren completely I'd love to hear from you. Personally I think the siren should be saved for ONLY community life threatening situations (tornado) or life threatening calls (but how could a station ensure that is the only time the siren rings?)

Seeing we're all from WNY I'd love to know what's gone on in your community related to this strange regional phenomenon.