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NFPA 291- Are Your Fire Hydrants Up to the Standard?
I was just wondering, when I went throught the Academy (many moons ago), we had to learn about NFPA 291: Recommended practice for Fire Flow Testing and Marking Hydrants. It goes as follows:
Class AA - Light Blue - 1500 GPM or greater.
Class A - Green - 1000- 1499 GPM.
Class B - Orange - 500- 999 GPM.
Class C - Red - less than 500 GPM.
In my travels around Chicagoland, I have yet to find a town that uses this! My town's hydrants are all red, regardless of their GPM output. Other towns use red, orange, yellow, etc. regardless of the GPM output. Still other towns have their hydrants painted up like soldiers, dalmations, etc.
Is there anyone out there that actually goes by this NFPA Standard?
Class AA - Light Blue - 1500 GPM or greater.
Class A - Green - 1000- 1499 GPM.
Class B - Orange - 500- 999 GPM.
Class C - Red - less than 500 GPM.
In my travels around Chicagoland, I have yet to find a town that uses this! My town's hydrants are all red, regardless of their GPM output. Other towns use red, orange, yellow, etc. regardless of the GPM output. Still other towns have their hydrants painted up like soldiers, dalmations, etc.
Is there anyone out there that actually goes by this NFPA Standard?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by T.J. on
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no, we test all of our hydrants every year and they're all the same color red and the city near us are all red too. I agree with you Brian we should use the flow color, because we rung a hydrent once for a massive condo fire and found out later had we rung a hydrent before that one we would've had almost twice the gmp. We're in the talks of doing this right now.
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Permalink Reply by KOJOFF on
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My full time and part time dept both adhere to this standard. There is a city near here that paints all of theirs silver... stating that all the hydrants in the city will produce the maximum flow... I dont know... ive never flowed on of theirs ... cant comment on that.. I like having them color coded, it makes it much easier as a pump operator to know that if you need the water, you can get it from the hydrant youre hooked up to...
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Permalink Reply by rfdjumper on
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Our hydrants are in theory are Yellow , Silver, and Red to correspond to hydrant pressure or high medium and low pressure, but they no longer follow that and just replace a hydrant with whatever is lying around. Though we do have access to a water main map with corresponding pressures if we need too.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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That's probably why the NFPA came up with the standard. I can't believe more F.D's don't do this, including my own!
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Permalink Reply by brian bell on
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i guess not they r suupposed 2 put new ones in
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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You forgot black! Yes, thats right boys and girls. In addition to NFPA 291 which almost nobody follows, in Texas we now have a law which mandates any hydrant which cannot manage 250gpm, is supposed to be painted black to indicate they are not for fire suppression, or removed. The kicker is that several municipal utility districts lately have painted ALL their hydrants black because they say they will never guarantee 250gpm because of the possibility of power and generator failures.
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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on
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All of ours are yellow/green. It appears that towns are more likely to paint them in Uniformity. You can get a report by the water department that will tell you which hydrants output what gpm. When this happens you in turn could paint all the top stems to the correct color so the "look" isn't compromised. Having the preplans in order will also determine hydrant locations for any building fire in a neighborhood. The dispatcher can tell you the 2 closest hydrants that are independant of each other so you don't rob from Peter to pay Paul so-to-speak.
Until the NFPA starts a complaince order, the towns aren't going to spend the money.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Muehsam on
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Our Water Dept does all Flow testing and marks (Color Codes) the hydrants with reflective tape, depending on flow rates. Here's how Central Arkansas Water marks the Hydrants:
YELLOW: Greater than 3,000 gpm
BLUE: 1,500-2,999 gpm
GREEN: 1,000-1,499 gpm
ORANGE: 500-999 gpm
RED: 0-499 gpm
It's close, but not exact.
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You are correct Sir! I did forget about black hydrants (shame on me). Although when I learned about NFPA 291, black was for "dead" or out of service hydrants. I remember reading about the new Texas law a while back. I can't help but wonder if some revisions will be made to the Texas law in regards to the problem you outlined above. Stay safe!
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We only had 3 hydrants which were flush points, fed with only a 4" line. We knew they couldn't flow the minimum, so we never even used them for filling even an Indian Bladder. When the new law came out, the water district elected to remove them. It hasn't been an issue here, yet. The water districts which do provide hydrants for fire suppression are blue barrel and the bonnets are white, and flow 1500gpm
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"Until the NFPA starts a complaince order, the towns aren't going to spend the money."
I'm afraid that's what it'll take. My F.D. doesn't abide by the standard either, maybe because the water department takes care of the hydrants. I believe that's the situation in several ajoining towns also.
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6355383 link to a news story on this.
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