For 107 years the Freemansburg Volunteer Fire Company has protected the residents – friends, family and neighbors – in the tiny borough of 3,000 to Bethlehem's east.

An invitation from borough council to fire department members recently, during which they would discuss the department's dissolution in preference for allowing the city to extend its fire coverage over the borough, resulted in an emergency press conference Nov. 14.

An unknown party some suspect to be a member of the Freemansburg Fire Department, notified the media before the scheduled Nov. 18 meeting, which sent borough leaders and Mayor John Callahan scrambling to get in front of the message.

Callahan, who was joined by city Fire Chief George Barkanic and Freemansburg Mayor Gerald Yob, Council President Homer "Bud" Lorrah and Manager Judith Danko, explained the venture has been in discussion for about a year. He said the city was approached by the borough because of its fire department's longstanding financial and manpower limitations and he wanted to help. "I felt an obligation as a neighbor," he said, and that similar volunteer department shortcomings statewide in recent years are leading to increased regionalism by larger, paid departments.

Callahan said the deal was about 95 percent finished: For $40,000 the city would respond to the borough's fire calls, increasing in cost by 1 percent annually for the duration of a 10 year contract. They would then negotiate a 5-year agreement, he said, saying the approximate 60 fire calls each year in Freemansburg required a long-term commitment.

Following Callahan and responding to incredulous and sometimes derisive comments by two firefighters who attended, Danko said the issue is one of a tiny borough's volunteer and financial resources being stretched. She cited a recent structure fire during which the police chief and a retired fire chief had to pull hoses from a truck because only two volunteers were on hand.

Danko said overall the borough could save a couple thousand dollars a year and, as insurance variables would be based on the city department's more beneficial state rating than a volunteer company, homeowner's insurance within the borough will stay the same or even drop.