Monitoring Butler, PA fire and EMS. This is an unofficial news media site and it is not affiliated with any emergency services or government organizations. While an effort is made to create a post for most high-interest incidents, a post is not guaranteed for any particular incident. Coverage is limited. If you see something happening and there isn’t a post, feel free to submit a tip!
Since Butler County upgraded to the Inter County Regional Radio System (ICORRS), all local police departments in the county use encryption by default, and so their radio traffic cannot be monitored by anyone with any scanner equipment. Similarly, Pennsylvania State Police have long used PA-STARNet, or the Pennsylvania Statewide Radio Network, which also uses encryption and cannot be monitored by anyone. Therefore, any radio traffic regarding police posted to this site will almost always have been relayed by fire/EMS units or Butler Control. These other radios are capable of communicating with county fire and EMS units, but they typically stick to their own channels with encryption.
Most medical calls are not posted unless there is something about it of interest (e.g. air evacuation is requested).
Thanks for reading. Please remember, this site is free and independently-maintained, so please consider helping to keep it going! Placing ads on the site was a reluctant decision made in an effort to help this site generate some revenue to help cover costs.
A big shout-out to those who have made contributions already! Every penny is greatly appreciated!
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why is commenting disabled on Facebook posts?
- This is the question I get most often. When the page was started, I allowed commenting. I admit that I miss the interaction with my readers, and there were certainly times where comments were useful to the overall purpose of the post. That said, I began to run into several problems that I see on quite a few “scanner pages” for other counties.
The comments become a jumbled, indecipherable mess. First, Facebook typically defaults to displaying whatever it considers “Top Comments” while hiding others. Then, it also lumps multiple comments into a timeframe such as “1hr” or “2hr,” so that you are unable to determine the actual order of the events. Next, in between actual updates to the incident, you have the multitude of well-wishers sending “thoughts & prayers” to the victims, who aren’t the intended target of the posts and aren’t likely to be reading the posts in real-time, anyway.
For these reasons, I’ve decided it is best to disable commenting in the interest of maintaining a professional appearance with a thorough picture of what is going on right in the post itself.
Please note that the official pages of most of the local Fire and EMS agencies ARE allowed to comment on my posts, if they wish to provide any information or details (such as road closure information) that I may be missing!!
I do occasionally post photos of incidents in the Facebook comments, as well, so if you see a comment count, take a look!
- This is the question I get most often. When the page was started, I allowed commenting. I admit that I miss the interaction with my readers, and there were certainly times where comments were useful to the overall purpose of the post. That said, I began to run into several problems that I see on quite a few “scanner pages” for other counties.
- Who runs this site? Are you one individual?
- Up front, I will say that I prefer to remain anonymous as much as possible. Certain legal documents and records must be kept, and so there may be some information out there for those who are so interested. I am friends with several firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics who contribute to this page behind the scenes, so they know me, of course.
I do run the page mostly by myself. There is 1 additional page administrator who contributes when available and assists me in emergencies.
I would like to share that I am a resident of Butler Township; I coincidentally live less than a mile from the Butler County 911 center on McCune Drive, as the crow flies (that sure makes my signal reception much easier!). I have children who attend McQuistion Elementary.
- Up front, I will say that I prefer to remain anonymous as much as possible. Certain legal documents and records must be kept, and so there may be some information out there for those who are so interested. I am friends with several firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics who contribute to this page behind the scenes, so they know me, of course.
- Why did you start this site?
- Two primary reasons, neither more important than the other: to bring awareness to the community of what our Fire and EMS agencies do all the time, and to let people know about real-time emergencies for multiple reasons.
- How do you manage to stay on top of things?
- I am a disabled veteran and a stay-at-home father, which is what allows me to dedicate a lot of time to what started out as a small hobby and grew into an actual news media site with over 20,000 followers.
While I was in the Navy, I was a Cryptologic Technician [Technical]. I primarily dealt with electronic and signals intelligence, but in my short time on active duty, I had the privilege of many different experiences. I have actually found some of my Navy skills useful in “spying on” the Fire and EMS agencies!
- I am a disabled veteran and a stay-at-home father, which is what allows me to dedicate a lot of time to what started out as a small hobby and grew into an actual news media site with over 20,000 followers.