Requesting information - Cumberland Maryland

[DeniseDycus]

Hi My apologies, as this board seems to be for siren enthusiasts, and I'm only here for information. I recently moved to Cumberland Maryland (about 3 weeks ago) and we have discovered that what sounds like an air raid siren sounds on a daily basis. Sometimes multiple times a day. I have heard it as early as 5:30 in the morning and at any number of times throughout the day. Since hostile forces are obviously NOT about to drop bombs on Cumberland, we're unlikely to have a massive tornado, and there does not appear to be a nuclear power plant anywhere in the vicinity, I was wondering if someone might be able to tell me what the devil that siren IS and why it keeps going off at odd hours throughout the day?

[Stevan Z]

Probably a fire siren for a volunteer fire department.

[Rheems1]

I can confirm that it is a fire siren going off, there are no active Civil Defense systems in the county nor are there any Nuclear Power Plant systems around there. The closest you have is the system at the Luke Paper Mill but you won't hear that unless there is an emergency at the plant which doesn't happen often enough to be more than once every 6 months or so (which is probably a high number in and of itself). Almost all of the local fire departments have sirens though, the siren is activated when the company gets a call to summon the volunteer fire fighters to the station. Some places like Frostburg and Midland have more than one siren, the city of Cumberland does not have a siren system either as they are a full paid fire department. If you would be so kind as to indicate which town you live in/closest too I could tell you for sure if they have a fire siren or not.

[DeniseDycus]

I live in cumberland, about a mile from the Chic-Fil-A/Martins, off Williams, up on the side of the mountain. I can stand on my front porch and see the Martin's and the railroad tracks... heck I can hear the trains on the tracks, and train whistles occasionally. But this air raid siren sounding thing goes off every day at least once, and sometimes 5 or 6 times. I KNOW it's not an actual air raid siren, or a tornado warning siren... but when I hear the thing go off, there is no sign of any smoke anywhere in the area that I can see (and I can see quite a bit of Cumberland proper, at least I could a couple weeks ago before the trees filled out). It's driving us nuts wondering why the damn thing goes off so often.

1) Can there really be THAT many fires in town on a daily basis, especially ones that don't seem to send up any smoke?
2) Why in gods name do they have what amounts to air raid sirens up here? I've lived all over the country, in small towns and major metro areas and everything in between, and I've NEVER heard a siren like that go off except once or twice a year during hurricane season to warn of the incoming storm.

[holler]

It goes off for every call the fire department has, not just fires. You have medical calls, wrecks, fire alarm calls, etc.

Fire sirens are very common in that area of the country. You'll get used to it. It's not an air raid siren, it's a fire siren. Ask some of the locals what it is, they can tell you.

[Modulator Master II]

The siren could be in Ridgeley, WV, cause that looks like the closest one on my siren map.

[PeachtreeSirens]

If you could post a recording of the siren to YouTube or somewhere similar, we might be able to tell you exactly which of the sirens in the area is the one you're hearing (and confirm whether or not it's the local fire siren).

[Rheems1]

I live in cumberland, about a mile from the Chic-Fil-A/Martins, off Williams, up on the side of the mountain. I can stand on my front porch and see the Martin's and the railroad tracks... heck I can hear the trains on the tracks, and train whistles occasionally. But this air raid siren sounding thing goes off every day at least once, and sometimes 5 or 6 times. I KNOW it's not an actual air raid siren, or a tornado warning siren... but when I hear the thing go off, there is no sign of any smoke anywhere in the area that I can see (and I can see quite a bit of Cumberland proper, at least I could a couple weeks ago before the trees filled out). It's driving us nuts wondering why the damn thing goes off so often.

1) Can there really be THAT many fires in town on a daily basis, especially ones that don't seem to send up any smoke?
2) Why in gods name do they have what amounts to air raid sirens up here? I've lived all over the country, in small towns and major metro areas and everything in between, and I've NEVER heard a siren like that go off except once or twice a year during hurricane season to warn of the incoming storm.

As Jeb explained, the siren will go off for basically every call the department gets not just fires... so basically everytime a car crashes on Route 68 and that fire department is due to respond the siren will sound. That area of West Virginia and Maryland is all volunteer departments, when a fire department fails to respond a piece in a set amount of time (generally 3 minutes) they go to re-alert. So in other words the county re-alerts them, the pagers get set off again and the siren also gets set off again... generally you get a total of 9 minutes to completely fail a call. So if no one shows up (or not enough people show up) at the 3 minute mark, the siren goes off again... if the 9 minute mark is reached the siren goes off a final time and another department is dispatched to respond in place of the first department (so a siren goes off at a different station than LOL). So if it is Ridgeley and they hurt for manpower, you could get 3 activations of the department which would trip their fire siren each time. Having said that, I never saw a fire siren in Ridgeley anywhere.. not saying they don't have one but I haven't found it yet IF they do.

[MattDean1003]

I know this is digging up an old thread, but in this video of C&O 1309's test run, starting at 1:32, the siren is heard. I've looked all over for it, and apparently it was between Hill School Road and the fire department....there was a complaint on the siren being too loud. I've found an abandoned pole, but this video was from just a few days ago, so the siren is still widely active.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LlnynhBWz8