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Frozen Hydrant Specialist
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.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bill Carlisle on
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Patti , we also use a tanker shuttle for all our calls since we donot have hydrants, the only time we use a hydrant is going mutual aid to were there are hydrants or using one in the neighboring district to fill tankers .
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Permalink Reply by Patti Walz on
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I don't know who takes care of ours. One more question for my Captain.
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Nice one
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Permalink Reply by Alan McGuigan on
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Frozen Hydrants
I guess it depends how frozen your hydrant is? If its solid then you have big problems even if you could thaw it out there’s a good chance its damaged. FIND ANOTHER HYDRANT. If it’s just started to freeze at one of the ports you might be able to open one of the other ports and get the water moving? The key is prevention, first keep the water flowing when you have started to use a hydrant keep the flow going doesn’t have to be a lot just enough to keep the flow going so it won’t freeze. Dry hydrants have drain holes at the bottom of the hydrant when you go to shut the hydrant down turn it all the way to the bottom than half a turn back to allow it to drain (make sure to check if its draining)you can tell if the hydrants draining by placing your hand over the 2.5 port with the others capped off if the hydrant is draining you should feel suction Not all dry hydrants are self-draining we have some that are located in high water table areas and they do not self-drain these hydrants need to be pumped out We carry a small Honda pump with a suction hose we can drop down through the 2 ½ port or steamer port and pump all the water out. The urgency of draining the hydrant will depend on how cold it is but it needs to be done before you head back to the station. We are also required to notify the water department and let them know which hydrants we used so that they can go and check them out to make sure they are in working order after the call
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Thank you. This is something that is pretty new to me because we live in the Valley and rarely do we get a hard freeze. It made me wonder, what would our station do if we had a fire in these cirumstances. We prepare our rigs, but what do we do about water supply.
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Reminds me of Multnomah Falls in the winter time
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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that wasn't his "tongue"......LOL
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Joseph....Up here it is not unusualy to hit minus 30 or so for a week or two at a time during the "cooler" months...so yes...sometimes they do freeze up...or worse yet the engines freeze up while we are working a fire....you never ever totally shut down a line while working a fire during the winter months...not unusual either to have so much ice build up on us that we can hardly bend our arms and legs....LOL...You just haven't fought fire till you have done it in temps minus 20 and colder.....LOL...its a whole new game.
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About 10 years ago I watch the old building across from where I worked go up in flames. The firefighters who responded had to deal with freezing conditions. As soon as the water hit the ground it was ice. Instead of doing my paperwork, I threw open the office door at 3am and told them to come in when they can for fresh coffee and hot food and called those who were going to be coming to work if they could bring some hot food down as well. It was impressive to watch. Those guys were pn scene from about 2am until around 9am.
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I will thank you for them...its always great when someone helps us out like that....We sometimes won't go inside, not because we don't want to...but if we do the ice on our gear melts and instead of being covered with icei we are now wet....dangerous to be wet and cold...very easy to get hypothermia....
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It was a small thing for me to do, and as we were a trucking company the dirt never bothered us. They took their gear off at the door and came on in. We even had a driver's lounge that they could relax in as needed. It was after I started with my department that I realized how a small thing like that could mean so much.
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