Where is Your Fire Hydrant Hiding?

— from Paul Kamin, Eastsound Water Users —

Notice something different at a fire hydrant in your neighborhood? Eastsound Water is attaching reflective color discs on our fire hydrants. The discs have multiple benefits. Their reflective surface helps our firefighters more easily locate hydrants after dark. When responding to any fire, but especially nighttime fires, every second counts. The disc’s color informs firefighters what type of water flow capacity they can expect from each hydrant. Finally they help improve our community’s insurance rating.

Not all fire hydrants are equal. Their flow capacity is greatly impacted by elevation, water main size, storage tank capacity and other variables. 85% of EWUA’s fire hydrants will flow over 500 gallons per minute.  In the Eastsound core, flows over 1,000 gallons per minute are the norm. Fire trucks have pumps that can “suck” water out of a hydrant. Knowing the limitations of a fire hydrant they are pumping helps Firefighters preserve water system pressure while drafting from a hydrant. Negative pressure caused by over-pumping can introduce contaminants into the water system.

In the process of installing these colored discs, Eastsound Water staff notice a number of hydrants are being hidden by landscaping. Orcas firefighters would like to ask that there be at least 2’ of clearance around a hydrant and that any surrounding plantings not impair an approaching firefighter’s ability to see the hydrant.