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Buffalo is the second-largest city in New York State and the seat of Erie County, home to roughly 275,000 people inside the city and close to 950,000 across the county. It sits at the eastern end of Lake Erie where the lake narrows into the Niagara River, a position that has shaped the city since its days as the western terminus of the Erie Canal. Today that footprint runs from the revived Canalside waterfront and the downtown medical corridor out through dense residential neighborhoods, the University at Buffalo campuses, and the suburbs and towns that ring the city. Bills game days in Orchard Park and Sabres nights at KeyBank Center pull huge crowds, and the region's famous lake-effect winters can bury whole neighborhoods in a single storm. All of it keeps the area's radio channels busy at every hour, from a quiet weeknight patrol shift to the wall-to-wall traffic of a snow emergency.
Buffalo Police, Fire and EMS Erie County, New YorkStart by downloading Scanner Radio, a free app that lets you listen to live police, fire, and EMS radio straight from your phone. Once it's installed, tap the button above to open the Buffalo Police, Fire and EMS feed. It's the most popular Buffalo feed and a natural starting point for new listeners, carrying city police, fire, and EMS dispatch together in one stream.
To branch out from there, open Scanner Radio and search "Buffalo" or "Erie County." You'll find separate feeds for the Erie County Sheriff, surrounding town and village departments, and neighboring agencies out toward Niagara Falls and the Southtowns. No hardware, antenna, or setup required. Just an app and a few seconds to tap into a feed.
Buffalo scanner traffic reflects a compact, hard-working city and the wide county around it. Dispatchers route patrol units through the city's police districts, coordinate with the Erie County Sheriff and New York State Police, and call in mutual aid from suburban departments when an incident grows. Fire and EMS run steady calls of their own, from structure fires in the older housing stock to crashes on the 190 and the Kensington. When a winter storm rolls in off the lake, the tempo jumps as crews handle stranded drivers, downed lines, and welfare checks all at once. When something significant breaks, scanner traffic is reliably the first place it surfaces, well ahead of local news alerts.
Two Scanner Radio features are worth turning on before you settle in. Community-tagged headlines let listeners flag the incident type active on a feed (building fire, pursuit, police activity) so you can see what's happening at a glance, and listener spike alerts push a notification when a feed sees a sudden surge in activity, often the earliest sign something major is underway.
You can listen to Buffalo Police using the Scanner Radio app.
Yes. Listening to publicly broadcast scanner traffic is legal in New York and across the United States. Restrictions only apply to using a scanner while committing a crime.
No. With the Scanner Radio app, you can listen to Buffalo Police, Buffalo Fire, and Erie County feeds straight from your phone. There is no hardware, antenna, or setup required.
The Buffalo Police, Fire and EMS feed is the most popular starting point for new listeners. It carries police, fire, and EMS dispatch for the city of Buffalo in one place.
It carries dispatch traffic for the Buffalo Police Department, Buffalo Fire Department, and city EMS response inside Erie County, New York.
Search "Buffalo" or "Erie County" in Scanner Radio to browse every available feed in the area. From the downtown police districts to the fire crews digging out after a lake-effect storm, you'll be listening to live dispatch in under a minute.
Listening from somewhere else? Swipe through our other city guides.
