Hydrants provide water access

Friday, Oct. 9, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Volunteers watch as a fire engine from Solomons Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department tests one of the three "dry" hydrants installed in Drum Point. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Thanks to a little community foresight, local fire departments will now have a far easier time responding to emergencies in the Drum Point area.

While fire engines usually carry enough water onboard to squelch small fires, they often need to refill their tanks in order to put out larger blazes.

This isn't a problem in communities with public water systems, where fire hydrants provide firefighters a virtually unlimited supply of water.

But in neighborhoods like Drum Point and most others in Calvert County, there is no public water system to connect a conventional fire hydrant, leaving fire personnel without a water source should their reserves run out.

Like many county communities, Drum Point is also heavily forested and particularly vulnerable to large, breakout fires.

That's why the Drum Point Property Owners Association (DPPOA) recently decided to install three "dry" hydrants on community property. The hydrants give local fire departments direct access to large, natural water sources within Drum Point.

Months ago, former DPPOA president John Gray began inquiring about the hydrants, which are common in the Midwest. Calvert Soil Conservation District Manager Bill Clark suggested that Gray approach the nonprofit Southern Maryland Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), which has been pushing the hydrants for years. Clark and Gray are members of RC&D's board.

"Over time, it's taken a much bigger place on our list of priorities," RC&D Program Officer Franklin Holley said. "It's something that is an immediate community need that RC&D can assist in."

RC&D drafted plans, surveyed Drum Point for bodies of water with appropriate depths and contours and provided materials for the first hydrant, Gray said.

The hydrants were installed by Bay Friendly Construction and tested by the Solomons Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department a few weeks ago. All three are currently awaiting certification so they can be used in the event of a real emergency.

Each hydrant is essentially a series of pipes that connects a fire engine's tank to a natural water source, like a pond or lake. Drum Point's hydrants are connected to Lake Charming, Lake Vista and the pond on Anchor Drive.

"They're an unlimited water source," said Raleigh Midkiff of St. Leonard, one of the Solomons firefighters present during the hydrant testing. "There's no way we could ever pump all the water out of there."

One end of the pipe is above ground and can be accessed by an engine via a hard sleeve hose, through which an onboard pump can draft water into the engine's holding tank.

"It's like a big drinking straw," said Roark Shallow, who spent 34 years as either a Washington, D.C., or volunteer firefighter. Shallow added that the hydrants are cheap, easy to install and require little maintenance. "This is kindergarten stuff in the firefighting world," he said.

The piping goes through the ground and into the water source, with the other end situated in the middle of the water's depth to avoid drafting surface ice during winter months or muck and debris from the bottom, Shallow said.

Each hydrant has a filter at the above-ground end of the pipe designed to catch any debris that does get sucked in. The hydrants need to be tested and flushed annually, but no other maintenance is needed, Shallow said.

The primary consideration during installation was access in and out of the area for firefighting personnel. Each hydrant should be located in an area where engines can easily pull in to use the hydrant and pull back out, reducing the time engines spend away from the fire, Shallow said.

Before the hydrants were installed, the water source nearest to Drum Point was a conventional hydrant located at the clubhouse of the Chesapeake Ranch Estates (CRE), which has a public water system, Midkiff said. While CRE is nearby, leaving the community to shuttle water back and forth would dramatically increase the time needed to put out a large-scale fire in Drum Point.

Hooking up the hard sleeves, which are bulkier and more cumbersome than fire hoses, is the most time consuming part of using the dry hydrants, Shallow said.

It is easier for engines to connect to one another, so the typical practice during a fire is for one large tanker holding more than 1,000 gallons of water to hook up to a hydrant and act as a refilling source.

"The whole concept of it is it's just like a regular hydrant, except we have to suck [the water] out instead of it being pushed out," Midkiff said.

Smaller engines holding anywhere from 500 to 800 gallons of water will then connect to the tanker and fill up as needed, Shallow said.

In addition to giving fire departments a nearby source of water, the dry hydrants can also decrease homeowners' insurance rates, Midkiff said, adding that it isn't uncommon for insurance companies to call fire stations and ask about their distance from the communities they serve and how much water their engines hold.

Outside of Drum Point, there is only one dry hydrant installed in Calvert, Shallow said.

jnewman@somdnews.com