How We Are Staffed and How We Respond

Moon Township does not have any paid firefighters, so our stations are never regularly staffed.  Here is an explanation of how things work for the fire company response.

1. A call is placed to either 911 or 412-262-5000 which is the Moon Township Emergency Dispatch Center. Even if you call 911, you will be transferred to the township dispatch center. If you need our fire company to respond to an emergency do not call our station number which is 412-262-5006. As described above, our stations often have no personnel inside, hence the phone may not be answered. 
2. Once the Moon Dispatcher determines a need for our fire company, they activate our pagers and provide a voice message describing the emergency and location. They also send out a notification to our phones via an application. This app allows our volunteer firefighters to hear the dispatch message and indicate whether or not they will be responding. This allows our officers to know if we have enough responders or if we need to call for more assistance. This app also provides us with a map of the address and all hydrants nearby.
3. After we receive notification, any available volunteers will begin to respond. Our Fire Chief and/or Assistant Chief will respond straight to the scene while other Line Officers and firefighters will respond to their closest fire station.  Depending on the severity of the emergency, some volunteers may use blue courtesy lights in their vehicles to ask other cars to move to the side so they can pass and get to the station quicker.
4. Once at the station, our volunteer firefighters will put on their gear, get in the trucks, and respond to the scene. We won’t always use the lights and sirens; it just depends on the severity of the emergency. 

As you can see, we rely solely on volunteers being able to respond at a moment’s notice. They certainly are not forced to make this sacrifice. They have other jobs outside of the fire company. They have families who miss them when they are gone. However, the volunteers here are committed to making their community a safer, better place to live.