Volunteer Firefighter Blue Courtesy Lights

Its no secret that Lititz area traffic is often times difficult to navigate.  Depending on the time of day or day of the week it can certainly take quite a while to get from one side of town to the other.  Follow along….

Imagine if you will, you’re a Volunteer Firefighter, its 430pm, Thursday August 6th, 2020, you just got home from a long day of work.  Your family is happy to see you and you can smell that dinner will be ready soon.  You sit down to catch some of the NHL Flyers vs. Capitals Round Robin game, the Flyers are up 2-0 at the first intermission, you’re in a good mood and ready to relax.  And just like that the Pager activates for a Dwelling fire, with fire reported in the kitchen and spreading rapidly.

You leave all of the aforementioned behind at that exact moment and spring into action, no questions asked.  You grab your car keys and run out to the driveway.  There sits your vehicle, the same vehicle with your kids soccer equipment in the trunk, or car seats in the backseat, is now at this moment transformed into an Emergency response vehicle.  You begin your journey to the Fire Station by activating your Blue warning lights to warn other drivers you’re on your way to Fire Station.  Hopefully the other drivers see your Blue lights and know what the Blue lights signify.  Hopefully the other drivers move over to allow you to pass so you can get to the Station quicker.  Hopefully this translates into getting to the house that is on fire quicker, hopefully……….  *Note* A fire typically doubles in size every minute. 

We bring this up because many of you might be unaware that these Blue warning lights are for Volunteer Firefighters to utilize so that people will move over and allow them to pass so they can get to the Station quicker.  Volunteer Firefighters utilizing Blue Lights responding to the station are not permitted by Pa State Law to use sirens, only Blue lights.  And again, to reiterate that these vehicles are our Firefighters personal vehicles. 

The question that is sometimes raised by concerned citizens when discussing Blue lights is that the vehicle using the Blue lights is often not marked with any identifiers and they don’t feel safe moving over, for fear of the person operating the Blue lights being someone impersonating a Police Officer.  While we don’t have the perfect answer as to how to deal with that situation we would encourage you to move over at a location that you feel is SAFE to do so and if the Blue light vehicle pulls behind you to be ready and prepared to call 911.  Thankfully the majority of the areas in our coverage area are well lit with a lot of residences, and typically the Police are not too far away either if needed.    

Moving your vehicle over when you see someone operating Blue warning lights behind you is crucial in a timely response to your neighbors in need.  We ask that if you see a vehicle behind you operating with Blue warning lights on to safely move your vehicle to the side and allow them to pass so that they may answer the call.  
   
If you’re curious as to what different colored warning lights mean, here is a breakdown (PA specific)

Red lights:

• Ambulance and Fire Vehicle 

Blue lights only:

• Volunteer Firefighters or 
• Ambulance personnel in Private vehicles

Red and blue lights:       

• Police

Amber lights:

• Construction, Tow Trucks, etc…