Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
It is that time of year again…hydrant maintenance. Actually, we typically do hydrant maintenance twice a year. For the past many years, my department has been attempting to get a handle on hydrant maintenance in concert with our water authority. It seems as though that means that after meetings between the departments, the firefighters perform different maintenance on the hydrants. There might be reason for why we do what we do and when, but I am not sure.
I can’t tell you where this hydrant is, but let me know if you see it.
I cannot remember painting the entire hydrant since I have been on the department. I DO remember when we accepted the NFPA colors for hydrants and we painted the bonnets and caps then. It is apparent that our hydrants have needed to be painted and I must say that they look 100% better once being painted silver along with the color coded bonnet.
Our crew began today. Captain is at the NFA, Rachel is at 13 for the day, and Lucas is off. Our Medic unit is out of service until 7pm due to staffing. Hull, Parker, and I headed out and knocked out 25 hydrants this morning. Yes, I realize it is a holiday, but since they failed to do any last cycle we have to get some done.
25 hydrants painted in 3.5 hours isn’t bad. Plus we ran 3 calls in that time (nothing to them though).
What does your department do about hydrant maintenance? Chesterfield County, VA (where I originally volunteered), hires a summer crew to do hydrant maintenance each year.
How do you paint your hydrants?
