Beginning Monday, May 30, Harvard residents will hear a loud air horn between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. whenever the Harvard Fire Department responds to an emergency call. The air horn is mounted on Harvard’s center fire station and is sounded to alert residents, motorists, bikers, and pedestrians of firefighters converging on the center of town to respond to the call, and to be on alert for emergency vehicles in the area. The air horn system will help keep both the public and responding firefighters much safer during emergency incidents. If you hear the air horn, please proceed with caution and be aware of your location relative to the Harvard Fire Department center fire station. Firefighters and emergency vehicles will be responding to and from that location.
For decades, and up until 2013, whenever there was an emergency call to the Harvard Fire Department, the fire whistle was activated by the emergency dispatcher from the Harvard Public Safety building on Ayer Road. However, a couple of things have changed over the past few years. First, Harvard switched from dispatching emergency calls for police, fire and ambulance from the Harvard Public Safety building to the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District headquarters in Devens. Second, the old fire whistle was replaced by an electronic horn system. Residents, especially those near the center of town, might already be familiar with the new horn, as it has been tied into the box alarm system for the past year. Until now, the electronic horn would only sound if one of the master box alarms tied into Harvard’s central fire alarm system was activated. Harvard’s central fire alarm system covers several structures near the center of town, including each of the churches, Town Hall, the old library, Bromfield High School and Hildreth Elementary School.
Beginning Monday, May 23, the air horn will now sound whenever there is an emergency fire call, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. At first, this system will be activated manually by the first responding firefighter to reach Harvard’s center fire station. Soon, a new software program will allow the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District to automatically activate the air horn whenever the Harvard Fire Department is dispatched to an emergency call.
For more information, please contact Chief Rick Sicard at rsicard@harvard.ma.us or 978-456-3648.