What does a Frozen Hydrant Specialist do? How do you take a hydrant in the winter time if the hydrant is frozen?

 

Where I am at it is not typical to get freeze spells.  We do get them from time to time and they generally last a few days. 

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Makes me very glad to live in the valley of the Pacific Northwest....
I have not been assigned a new role, just saw this article and was curious about it since this is something we do not drill on, because in the valley it rarely freezes.
I remember a old kids picture book about the fire service where it showed a special vehicle that had steam unit mounted on it and if a hydrant was frozen the unit would show up to thaw out the hydrant.
I remember that the down town station in Baltimore, Md near the Inner Harbor had a emergency water dept truck parked in the station. I guess it would respond on water use problems on firegrounds around the city. I would guess it also ran frozen hydrants.
I had the oppertunity to look through an old Firefighter essentials book from the 50's. I found the picture of what appeared to be a small motor and metal dome mounted on a metal plate with what appeared to be bent rebar for handles. This device was set over frozen hydrants to steam them open.
I would love to see something like this.
We have them from time to time and bought a 5 pound LP tanks and a torch to thaw them out. In most cases it is just frozen at the nut up in the bonnet. We take the caps off and blow the torch into the barrel to thaw the stem. Water Co then comes out and services the hydrant when we are finished to prevent from freezing again. This has worked great so far and only costs about $65.00 per tank, fuel and torch.

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