At the sound of a pager, Michael Breen has had to drop dinner, jump out of the shower and even leave class to put out fires.

"Three minutes from now we could be in a burning building," Breen (senior-civil engineering), a volunteer firefighter for Alpha Fire Company, said Saturday night as he and other firefighters waited for a call at the station on 400 W. Beaver Ave.

But Breen said he doesn't get scared -- he enjoys the thrill of it all.

"It's such a paradox," Breen said. "We want to fight fires, but we don't want to see lives get destroyed."

Alpha is staffed by more than 100 volunteers, and about one-third of them are students.

At 12:40 a.m., the fire bell rang, signaling the first call of the night. Residents reported seeing wires spark on an electrical pole on the 1300 block of University Drive.

Breen and the other firefighters quickly suited up -- boots, pants, jacket, hard hat -- and sprinted to the trucks.

Breen jumped into the driver's seat of Engine 510. Three other firefighters, all Penn State students, came along on the engine.

The guys put on large earphones that hung over each seat, each equipped with a microphone, in order for them hear each other over the piercing sound of the sirens.

Engine 510 went down Beaver Avenue with its flashing lights and sirens, clearing the road lined with students decked out in Halloween costumes.

Firefighter Randy Diggins (senior-economics), who sat in the front passenger seat, used a laptop to tell Breen the best route to take.

The computer contains a special program that knows directions to every location within the territory Alpha covers, as well as every fire hydrant in the area. By typing in a location, the computer tells the firefighters where the nearest fire hydrant is and how much hose they would have to use.

At the scene, the firefighters checked the electrical pole, located in the yard between two homes, for any immediate dangers.

"There's not much we can do on a call like this, except check for hazards," Fire Chief Chris Prestia said.

Although the cause of the electrical problem was unknown, Prestia said it was likely the cause of the stormy weather that night.

After the firefighters determined there were no immediate dangers, they headed back to the station.

Just after 2 a.m., the fire bell rang again. Over the intercom, the dispatchers said there was an accident on University Drive, and Alpha was needed because people were trapped inside the vehicle.

Once again, the guys suited up and ran to the trucks. But when they were about to fly out of the station, a voice over the intercom said there was no entrapment after all.

"False alarm," Breen said. "Welcome to our world."

About an hour later, the bell sounded again.

This time, an automatic fire alarm went off at Mike's Service Center, 1515 N. Atherton St. Breen used an air horn in addition to the sirens to alert cars as the fire truck approached intersections.

When the guys arrived at the scene they took a walk around the building, peering in the windows to look for any smoke or other hazardous signs.

"It could just be a problem with the alarm," firefighter Justin Locke (graduate-mechanical engineering) said, adding that most of Alpha's calls for automatic fire alarms turn out to be nothing.

After about five minutes, the firefighters determined there was no danger and headed back to the station.

At this point, Breen and the other firefighters were tired. Some of them went to sleep in the beds upstairs at the firehouse, but they were still on call.

Breen is used to sleeping in the firehouse. A "live-in," he has his own room and lives there year-round.

"Everyday you're doing something useful, you're helping strangers you've never met," Breen said. "We sometimes see people at the worst time in their life, and at that time they need us more than anyone else."