By John Tredrea, Special Writer
LAMBERTVILLE — The Lambertville fire horns on York Street, at Sheridan Park, and atop the Columbia Firehouse on North Union Street will begin ring sounding again in the near future, officials said.
The horns have been out of service for months while repairs were being made to them.
Lambertville Fire District Chief Matt Hartigan said the horns are a vital component of emergency services.
”The horns are a critical part of the emergency notification system for our volunteer firefighters,” the chief said. “Although pagers and cell phones with text alerting are available, the fire department has realized the audible fire horn is a necessary tool to alert the volunteers.”
Like firefighters in many other towns throughout the country, those in Lamberville are no longer alerted solely by sirens or horns. For many years, firefighters have also been alerted to alarms by electronic pagers, customarily worn hooked over the firefighters’ belts.
In recent years, firefighters also have learned of alarms via their cell phones, and use of the text-messaging capabilities of those phones to tell inform their base that they are responding to an alarm.
Chief Hartigan said the use of the horns, in addition to pagers and cell phones, provides an extra margin of safety in that it provides another way of alerting firefighters to an emergency.
”We want to avoid a situation where a life or property is lost as a result of lack of notification, which the horn provides,” the chief said.
Officials say the fire department is sensitive to the issue of disturbing sleeping residents and is striving to avoid having the horn sound between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when most firefighters are home.
When the horns are operating again, they will be tested daily at noon.
The purpose of the noon test is to confirm that the horns are working and available in an emergency.
”The period the fire alarm was inoperable reinforced the need for the audible alert,” Chief Hartigan said.
The chief is working with his team and the Fire Commission to review the existing system and other technologies that can be used to ensure and enhance the response of the volunteer fire department.

