"Once you activate 9-1-1, you go through our dispatch center. Our dispatch center will send a page out, and it is over a radio frequency. Once we receive that page out, out pager automatically activates our siren," said Captain Michael Ginnis of The Westmorland Fire Department.

Once the siren is activated it will sound off for 45 seconds, and the new siren has a different pitch than the old one.

The new sound is a little different from the old siren using a lower frequency which enables people to hear the siren on windy or rainy days.

"Our department is 100% volunteer fire department so we don't have people that stay here at the station 24 hours a day like any career fire departments," explained Ginnis.

When the siren goes off, it alerts other fellow volunteer firefighters that an emergency situation may be happening.

"Our firefighters may come from home, from work or might just be in town and they'll have to respond at any given notice," added Ginnis.

The old siren was here for 80 years and now The Westmorland Fire Department is trying to figure out where its new home will be.

The fire truck was on scene assisting in a single-vehicle accident when a white van crashed into the back of the truck. The driver of the van, 29-year-old Artem Vytiegov of San Francisco, was pronounced dead on scene. The passenger, who has not been identified, was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center for treatment. There is no word yet on her condition or other injuries.

Cleveland police officer David Fahey, who was on scene placing down flares for the accident, was struck and killed by a white Toyota Camry which then drove away from the scene. Police believe they have found the vehicle.

Medic 1 is one of three ambulances in the city's fleet. The others are 2008 and 2012 models in better condition.

Three times during the past two years, the department was denied grants sought to replace Medic 1 because of the ambulance's low mileage, Fire Chief Ted Anderson wrote in a memorandum to the council.

There were 69,518 miles on its odometer as of last week. That is "somewhat low" for an ambulance needing to be replaced, Anderson said in a phone interview Monday. But it has seen much wear and tear over the years when traveling to and from medical calls, he added.

The main concern, though, is the condition of its motor.

Medic 1 has a type of motor that Ford introduced the year in which the ambulance was built. Anderson wrote in the memorandum that the motor type, a 6.0, has "been plagued with numerous problems" over the years.

As a result, "we basically got a lemon" with Medic 1, he said in the interview. "It's just a bad vehicle."

The fire and EMS department paid about $185,000 for the ambulance, Anderson said to his understanding. Yet since 2004, it has spent almost $88,000 - equaling roughly 48 percent of the purchase cost - on repairs, he said.

City vehicles usually are repaired at the city's garage. However, Medic 1 sometimes has been repaired by private garages because the repairs it needed exceeded the city garage's capabilities.

"One time," Anderson recalled, "it had to have its motor rebuilt, and it was put together with bits and pieces of other motors" that another garage had acquired.

Along with the costly repairs, "the significant down time of this unit has resulted in missed EMS calls to our citizens and the inability to perform routine maintenance on other ambulances," he said.

"We have a strong relationship with our local fire departments, so we are very pleased to help them stay well-equipped," Dean Piper, maintenance department manager at Georgia-Pacific's Bowling Green Dixie facility, said in a news release. "These grants show our gratitude for their selfless dedication."

The grant will go toward the replacement of full-body protective gear that no longer meets standards set by the National Fire Protection Association. Each set costs more than $2,000.

"This grant will improve the safety of firefighters by providing lighter and better protection," fire Chief Bob Skipper said in a news release. "It will help us stay on track with our five-year master plan to invest in a new station near the Georgia-Pacific facility."

This year, Georgia-Pacific awarded $170,000 in grants to fire departments for equipment critical to firefighters' safety.