It could be sunny and beautiful, or "in the middle of a thunderstorm or the middle of a blizzard." And it could be any time of day.
"When we're called, we leave our homes and our families to get in harm's way," Lancaster Township fire official Steve Roy said to a packed meeting room in his township Monday night.
But getting to the fire or hazardous-materials spill or other event is getting harder and harder from two aging and undersized fire stations, Roy and other township officials agreed.
The solution? A proposed emergency services headquarters on land at the edge of Lancaster Township Community Park.
Nothing has been voted on, but township officials, who feel the site is the perfect fit as a central location for their much-respected fire company, held a public meeting Monday to spell out what they see as the advantages of the project.
Some 150 residents came to the meeting at Maple Grove Community Building on Columbia Avenue to hear more.
They also came to ask questions, and some to vent about what they see as a change in the park which they're afraid will "change our way of life," as one woman said.
Roy, the township's assistant fire chief, said the existing Bausman and Wheatland fire stations are becoming less and less suitable to meet the fire department's needs.
"Lancaster Township is very, very difficult to find a center to," he said, but the proposed site between Millersville Pike and Atkins Avenue, in the northwest corner of the park, is about as close to an ideal, centralized location as officials could hope for, he said.
The township's volunteer fire company has been looking for a place to consolidate its operations for several years.
The site abuts Atkins Avenue and is behind the Planet Fitness exercise club and other commercial properties facing Millersville Pike.
The School District of Lancaster owns the land, and leases it to the township for recreational use.
The terms of the 99-year lease would have to be changed for an emergency services center to be built there.
"I know the fire company has needs, but we have other needs, and I believe parkland is one of them," said Ben Stigelman of 341 S. President Ave.
He's worried about losing that parkland, since the township has less open space than it should have and the fire station project would take away a few more acres.
Township Manager Bill Laudien coordinated the meeting, which also drew all three township supervisors and a fourth supervisor who takes office in January.
Judging from the applause that speakers in the crowd received during a public comment portion, the crowd seemed slightly in favor of not putting the fire station at the park site.
But several others spoke in favor of the new location, and they also drew significant applause.
One Maple Avenue resident had thought the fire station project would take down a line of trees in the park, and, told that was far from the case, she exclaimed to the fire officials, "Then I'm 100 percent behind you!"
But resident Terry Hatch, a former Lancaster school board member, said that, while "the firemen are great, … we want to take care of our kids.
"And I'm opposed tooth and nail to breaking up perfectly good open-space land."
Laudien told the audience that he and other township officials will be "preserving your quality of life, preserving parkland … I appreciate the emotion of the people who this affects."
A few speakers got heated toward the end of the nearly two-hour meeting, decrying the possible loss of parkland.
But Laudien said he and other officials want to show "why we need a fire station at a central location, and why the park needs to be that location," as the manager said.