Fire Hydrant Colors Actually Mean Something
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2017
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In this video:
One of the first challenges that firefighters face when they arrive at a fire is finding a suitable water source that provides enough water for the type of fire they are fighting. Common sense tells us a car on fire will require much less water than a burning apartment building. There are formulas used by firefighters that will tell them approximately how much water is needed to fight a given fire (see bonus facts below). Fire hydrants are commonly color coded to indicate how much water a particular hydrant will provide. This allows for quick decision making when they are deciding which hydrant to access.
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Now that you know why fire hydrants are painted different colors check out this video and find out the answer to the question- What is the Largest Raindrop Possible?:
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I am a fire fighter. I had to learn all this in fire school. And like most things you learn in fire school, the real world is very different. I don't know of anywhere that actually uses these colors. I've never seen a green or blue fire hydrant. Where I work we have yellow hydrants (except non-potable hydrants which are purple). They are Yellow for visibility. It's more important to find the hydrant then to know how much water will come out of it. You're going to hook to the closest hydrant, and you'll know how much water your getting by looking at the gauges on the truck. You don't have time to look around for other hydrants.
Also, Bonus fact, if we really need more water, we can call the water company and ask them to increase the flow to the area. The water department doesn't like doing this, but in situations with a really large fire they will do it, if they can.
Kris Occhipinti thank you for your service.
Our department used the colors. As an engineer it's important to be able to see a hydrant and hook up to it knowing an approximate of how much water you can actually pump out on that particular hydrant.
Kris Occhipinti Walla Walla county in Washington state uses quite a few green fire hydrants (dark green). Although I've never seen any that are blue, purple, black, or orange. The ones where I live are all yellow. I can't remember seeing any in real life that are red(only in cartoons)though. Actually I take that back. I have seen red ones in real life, in Walla Walla county.
Thank you for your service!
ditto that. there is no standardization of colors. What would be more useful would be standardized opening direction
I am a retired fire company officer and have a degree in fire science. I only wish that there were that much information available based on the color of the hydrant. I understand there are NFPA standards, but most municipalities will paint hydrants whatever color they want them unfortunately. One particular city painted the hydrants to match their new street signs....ugh. Fortunately, in most places, the pressure and flow from hydrants is relatively similar so as long as you are aware of the standards in your area, you'll generally be able to make good decisions. Great video, and accurate information. Again, I just wish that compliance were more common.
every day i wake up. every day i find new ways to realize how dumb, clueless and vain human beings are. then i go to sleep. anyways, if i understood correctly, thank you sir for your service in helping us, the morons, survive another day. ur services are more useful than the army, and at a fraction of the cost.
assaqwwq ..Was that last sentence really necessary?
Local town painted all their hydrants baby blue. I didn't know they were actually just trolling their own fire department, that's interesting info
firemanJeff911 look into how its handled in germany we got signs and underground hydrants
That's how they are used:
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrant#/media/File:Standrohr_unterflurhydrant.jpg
I've never seen a violet one, but this video made me realize that while I think of fire hydrants as being red, I have seen far more yellow ones than red ones. weird.
That's the affect of TV and movies, usually showing a red hydrant
Gideon Jones Same
I used to work for the Phoenix water dept repairing old broken infrastructure. We would only mark the caps if the hydrants where tapped on a 16" main or bigger. It is soo important to not paint over, decorate around or otherwise try to lessen the "eye sore" of a hydrant. If property burns and it can be proven who disguised the hydrant, the owner of the damaged property can and probably will win a lawsuit.
Not at all, In most places you can freely paint the fire plug.
In a neighborhood my step dad built we had a red 12inch wide line from middle of street up the curb to the hydrant, the firemen can see where the hydrant is from a block away.
Benson
"herp da dur im a 35 year old sheltered white woman with no job because i married a guy i dont find sexually appealing so i could stay sheltered and now i have nothing to do all day so im going to go outaide and ruin everyons life by painting this fire hydrant into a Sylvester the cat! Herp da dur!"
Every place I have lived with paved roads has blue corner reflectors in the roadway to mark hydrant locations.
As a firefighter in the U.S. I support this video as accurate.
Chris C.
Do you feel it's a great system or could you find issues?
Chris C. Me,too.
Chris C, David Walsh, just like to use this opportunity to thank all those in fire services. I have been in a couple of fires in my life and therefore know how brave you are, due to my time serving attached to the military in a rather hostile environment, having lived above a chip shop that went up in the middle of the night when someone had left a deep fat frier on, destroying everything my first wife and I had, whilst we were luckily at a nightclub having "decided to stay out until 5am" (rather lucky that one), and then my honeymoon with my 2nd wife in Romania, when the LPG tank in the bar underneath our room went up in a blaze of glory at around 5am.
The explosion woke us as it shook the room, and by the time we had pulled on woollen jumpers and shoes, the hall was entirely filled with acrid smoke.
My wife panicked and could not make it across the floor, to the stairs to get out, so ran back to the room and panicked some more.
I made my way around the wall, kicked in the doors of the bedrooms near us, waking the guests up in the process, both to alert them and to get a gasp of air, and we eventually abseiled down the balcony from the 3rd floor on a rope made out of sheets after I had thrown multiple mattresses down to the bottom, taken from our room and various rooms I could gain access to.
So having seen both the results of intense fires, and the first hand "panic" of people in these situations, I very much commend you and your bravery.
Dave Marx, my area uses a slight variant, but for the most part I feel alot of departments don't use it enough, it works but the only time we really see and think about the color of the caps is when we plan ahead of time, we get too focused on how to properly disconnect all caps and connect the right adaptors and get the water to the rig ASAP.
Bob Bobskin many thanks for protecting those you love with the military service sir.
This video was very insightful. The fire hydrant at the front of my driveway is solid yellow, not the most beautiful thing you're ever going to see but it's very reassuring to know the closest water supply is only 50 feet away! Thanks Simon for all you guys do!
It seems like all the NYC ones are painted black with a silver top. Except for the ones in Little Italy. They're green, white, and red. And it means you're in Little Italy.
The ones sticking out of buildings are different colors though.
True. I guess it means NYC doesn't have working hydrants.
I live in NYC and there's a red fire hydrant near a park.
I think that at least 2 of his examples were silver topped black hydrants 😊
In the town of fort Covington NY we got a red and yellow one and a pure green one that has no caps.
The more technical term is standpipe connection. That will allow what you have said, and also allow them to pump water to another end of that pipe(usually in stair wells) where the fire department can connect with the hose and fight the fire locally, as opposed to stringing long lengths of hoses all the way from the engine to the door, and up god knows how many flights to the fire. Instead a short hose connects an engine to the stand pipe, and the fire fighters can go inside and connect the hoses to the other end of the stand pipe.
I’m an Australian FireFighter, this is really interesting. Here, or at least in my state (NSW) we have a point that comes up from the town or city water pipes but it stops below the surface, called hydrant points. Around these (the bits that you see) is a cover with a little hatch door to get to it. With this what we do is ‘ship a hydrant’. Our tankers and truck carry a ‘stand pipe’, we upen that hatch and we put the hydrant in ourselves. It just crews in very securely so it doesn’t burst off and fly into the air, and we twist on top and it pushes a plunger down on a ball that stops the water coming through to move it, and we connect to the stand pipe.
I also wanted to say that if you have a fire on a 2nd story or so, water damage to the lower level isn’t due to an ‘overzealous firefighter’. It’s inevitable if we need to put that fire out.
DJ Allbad114 awesome always wanted to know what do the small markers that say ph and sv stand for? Was told as a kid they were used buy firefighters I think there are others but can't remember
Willy Nebula
SV is a sewer vent
PH is a phone line
Although I’m not confident, we don’t use them much.
But next time you see a telegraph pole, have a look for a green tag that had a bunch of numbers on it. We use that if there is a structure fire or a electrical fire to get essential energy to shut off the power, then can do it by the poles
That is how it goes in about everywhere in the world, except the USA.
I love that your state is NSW, if I ever go to Australia I am going there. One question though, do your fire trucks or police cars have NSW on the side?
Sean Peacock no here's a pic of one
t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTqNcODcZSz8iZDg9DcFzWx1AkH3h9Fo32rIReNUl2TBpicZEArIg
Very interesting video! There's a tall pole with a round sign just outside my house with a picture of a hydrant on it. However, the "hydrant" is actually two round flip-up lids in the middle of the lane. One shallow one for connecting a hose, and a deep one with a hex-bolt-looking thing that they can use a T-shaped tool to open the water flow. I've seen them use it once when there was a brush fire nearby. It's kind of a neat setup because the lane is pretty narrow and it makes sense to run the pipe through the middle.
TORONTO (and some other Ontario Canada cities...)
Blue hydrants can move the largest volume of water, able to pump out 95 litres per second, while a red hydrant is the weakest, only able to pump less than 31 litres a second. Green and orange hydrants fall in the middle ground, with the former able to dispense between 63 and 95 litres per second and the latter pumps between 31 and 63 litres per second. The remainder of the hydrant, or the barrel, is painted yellow, though red hydrant barrels can still be seen around Toronto despite the uniform code.
Yes but in the GTA they used to paint the hydrant tops according to the region. Nort York had sky blue tops, Scarb had orange tops, Toronto had silver, and then later green tops. etc. It had nothing to do with the GPMs. But then after they adopted the new colour code standard, it is hard to tell if a hydrant is painted according to the code, or if it is an old left over paint job that happened to be blue.... this is why half the firefighters don't trust how it is painted....
"95 litres per second" Ooh my! That's a really disturbing amount of water.
If choosing the correct water pressure and type of hydrant is so important, I'm surprised there aren't stricter rules about how they're painted.
Conway79 On that note, I'm surprised they don't have a local map or app that has this info for each fire station and readily available to other stations that may have to assist in their area.
It is important but there is nothing you can do (really). It's not like there is another choice. If you need 1500GPM and the house is in front of a red hydrant you use the red hydrant. If there were three hydrants in front of a burning house you would choose the silver or blue. Basically the color indicates what flow to expect. There are things you can do but they take time, which there is not a lot of in that situation.
Conway79 It is important, but two things, there isn’t much different in flow rate between hydrants and/or the firemen have a good idea what the flow rate is for everything in their area. (Also, if you pay attention to the video, flow rate is important, not pressure and type.)
Dead Parroting Some municipalities do have maps, but having to pull out a map and figure out the info on it takes time, so it’s easier to just look at the hydrant. As far as the app goes, firemen don’t carry their cellphones...they would get damaged in the fires.
Erikk Friberg They should really have something in the truck, though, like the cops do. It doesn't have to go in the building with them.
Why would anyone think fire hydrants are ugly? They're iconic.
Because they're ugly and just plain weird. In most countries, hydrants are below ground.
So, no crashing in to them at the end of a high speed movie chase :p
No fire hydrants were peed by dogs in this video
What does "peed by dogs" mean?
Jason Rogers I think it was supposed to say peed on by dogs
If you can't figure it out you have bigger issues to worry about
Wonder Woman has a invisible dog to go with her jet, so we don't know that
Who said I can't? And this isn't an "issue".
In Germany we sometimes make fun off our fellow firefighters in the US. We say they are using the "Temperatur Differencial Method", they messure the waters temperatur befor filling it through the roof and messure it when i flowes out of the building. If there is no more differencial the fire is out.
Schulzffw lol well that would probably work
I can't even wrap mind around 2,500 gallons per minute
2500 gal per minute == a touch under 10,000L per minute (9,463.2L/min). According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Routemaster, that double decker bus weighs 12 metric tons, 1000L of water ~= 1 metric ton (accounting for impurities, etc, iirc standard atmospheric pressure pure water is 1L == 1KG) so yeah, a little less than one of those buses spewing out of the hydrant **pauses for effect** per minute :)
Using this as a reference, assuming average American pickup is ~4000lbs , convert that to metric for my Aussie brain and we get 1814kg (lets make that 1800kg), so 2500 gal/minute is roughly equal to about 5 american pick up trucks worth of weight squirting out of that hydrant, per minute :)
(ref: www.nytimes.com/2004/05/05/business/average-us-car-is-tipping-scales-at-4000-pounds.html)
or enough water to fill an olympic-sized pool in about 4 hrs 25 minutes
(pool volume ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic-size_swimming_pool)
You are amazing.
Your welcome :)
Bonus Fact (sorry I couldn't help myself)
In the time it would take to listen to the average Monster Cat podcast (they're usually around 1 hour) or watch the average scheduled TV program in Australia (they usually run say 7.30pm to 8.30pm), that fire hydrant would have spilled 567,780 litres of water (just under 150,000 gallons) which, ever so conveniently is just under the MTOW (maximum take off weight) of a Boeing A380-800F which is 589,670kg (the F designation is important, the A380-800 would be over it's MTOW by over 23 tons or about 13 "average" pickup trucks (little over 51,000 pounds))
Funnily enough, the Russian Antonov An-225 could actually LAND with that much mass plus 13 pickup trucks :D which is strange, how the number of pickup trucks worth of weight over the MTOW of the A380-800 vs A380-800F, is the amount the Antonov can land with to spare for the same amount of water.
Additionally assuming your house has 2.5 meter ceilings (about 8ft 2 inches), that one hour would be enough time to fill 227 ish square meters (2,445 square feet) of floor space to the ceiling.
Another perspective, is that you could fill a soccer pitch to around 80 centimeters (around 2 ft 8 inches) of water.
All of this, from a humble fire hydrant :)
ref:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliners_by_maximum_takeoff_weight
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pitch
Astonishing
Bonus Fact: If fire fighters aren't putting water on a building yet they are searching for lives. If they add water first the people inside get flash cooked like shrimp or lobster.
yikes
Thanks. Now I'm hungry.
Dakota M exactly. The smoke inhalation would kill a victim long before the steam could even get close to them. Also, firefighters VERY rarely go into a burning building. Every structure made post 1980ish will already be a pile of ashes by the time the nearest fire department gets paged out and arrives.
Dakota M yeah. The biggest problem is vinyl siding. Vinyl siding will burn a house down to the ground in around 15 minutes
Dakota M Thanks for the info! Are there any other common misconceptions that just always bug you?
Your quote about hydrants only out of service for a short time having a bag put over them made me chuckle. There is a hydrant around the corner on a neighboring property that has had a black bag over it for several years. I guess that's considered a short time.
I thought I was going to walk away from this video having learned about hydrant colors (and I have), but I am more intrigued by how much calculation is actually required just to spray water on a fire. Thanks, guys!
More Infrastructure videos!
I want to understand all the little things around me that makes the city work, and it gives me something to think about when I look out the window in a bus.
Thanks so much! Great info
Why are there colored stickers on the back of various traffic signs?
I've seen them too. Don't know what they are.
The stickers I've noticed on street signs indicate the manufacturer, the date the sign was made, and similar information.
The stickers on the back of road signs are permits issued by the municipality so that no one can just put up a road sign without permission if you look closely they have a date on them
Interesting. I walked by one yesterday that had no sticker, is it a privately used one?
In Buffalo, NY, the hydrants all have 8 foot tall bright pink poles attached.
This makes them easier to find in the winter snow-drifts.
I really like your facts on how the water is able to put out the fire
first video ive clicked on for a while.. i stay subbed coz i like your continued effort
Most hydrants will have a shutoff valve in the street 20-50 feet away, flush with the surface of the street in case a car hits the hydrant and water is coming out where the hydrant was.
If you see a blue reflector in the street, all by itself, there will be a hydrant at that location on the sidewalk.
BariumCobaltNitrog3n In Florida blue reflectors are set a few inches to the side of the center stripe of the road to mark hydrant locations. Up here in Minnesota, however, I've not seen a single road reflector of any color, I guess because they would get ripped out of the pavement by the snow plows. In a lot of areas, however, long reflective fiberglass poles, similar to, but bigger around, the poles people use to mark the edges of their driveways and walkways in the winter, are attached to hydrants to make them more visible, even if they are buried in snow.
BaCoN
yesindeed
In Washington State, there are road reflectors in various colors. They are set in grooves cut into the pavement.
I live in a part of Minnesota which has only two types of hydrants and most of the time they just use water trucks. Anyway in the bigger town close to me, the city actually approved the repainting of the hydrants by citizens, as the city had only one type, and two groups took up the challenge. The first group were veterans, who just repainted them red and placed service branch stickers on their half of the hydrants. The other group, went very creative, and we have hydrants with Disney, Warner Bros, and other cartoon characters, also local mascots, and Mario, and my favorite, one in the image of Adam West Batman.
Brilliant. Thank you very much.
Do a series about international Fire hydrants. Would be awesome
The hydrant right by my place is chrome yellow with a green top. When an idiot hit it and knocked it over, the geyser was impressive as was the scouring done by the water. The new hydrant has the shear bolts on it so only the bolts need replacing in case of stupidity.
The neighboring city uses silver colored hydrants with red/green/blue tops or caps depend on the shape of the hydrant.
The company I used to work for tests hydrants used in mobile home parks doing yearly and 5-year inspections and tests. It was interesting to do a yearly inspection.
St Louis county for the most part follows the color code, where the barrel is yellow and the bonnet is colored based on the main size, green for 12 inches and up, orange for 8 & 10, and red for six and smaller. Whereas most hydrants in St Louis City are black with a silver bonnet in most places and stylized in others (painted like the Italian flag in The Hill)
Jeez, I thought that quantum mechanics was the hardest subject...
I used to work for a waterworks supply company supplying a city of 100,000 people and smaller towns in a 100mi radius. All of the hydrants came red despite the size. Those that were sold to the city were all the same size and were required to be repainted with a particular shade of paint.
Having worked for a municipal, public water system I can tell you they paint the hydrants with....whatever paint they have on hand(and they get high school kids to do it for summer jobs).
You should add something about fire types that you should never use water on, like grease/oil fires, chemical fires, and certain electrical fires.
I worked for Winnipeg Water and Waste and we painted hydrants according to the size of the main feeding the hydrant.
White top...4 in. Yellow...6in. Blue...8in. Red...10in. or larger.
It took me a moment to understand what you were saying about the violet coloured hydrants. If anyone else was having trouble, he was saying differences between portable and non-portable water.
Essentially, portable water is defined as being safe or fit for human consumption. Non-portable water is not. Portable water is what would normally come out of your household taps, and non-portable water includes things like water in rainwater tanks and the septic drainfield. Additionally, water from a septic system or a treatment plant is called “recycled water”, and generally, unless treated, is not fit for human consumption.
Usually a septic drain field is underground, but here in Australia that’s not always the case. In my house, we are on a septic system, but we don’t have a drainfield - our drainfield is a hose with a sprinkler that we use to water the front lawn! There is an extra step in my system that makes the water safer for this use, and bloody hell is our front lawn green as grass! But again, because it is recycled, non-portable water, by law the hose must be coloured violet/pink, which it is. So there is no mistaking when you pick up that sprinkler, where the water is coming from.
Hope this diatribe clears up a couple things to some people!
Moon Moon potable and non-potable. No r
we live rural..have volunteer dept, and we have a lot of private farm ponds with the attachments for tanks to fill.. almost every large pond is known to be able to pump out of it.. they have those hydrant attchments.. andit also counts on our home owners insurance.. water source and distance to firehouse.. it is a huge discount.. how close is the fd to ur house..huge
As someone from new Zealand I often wondered why the states had different colour hydrants but now I know thanks very informative
As a firefighter/EMT, I approve this video. Another thing to consider is there is widely varying policies as to whom has to care for fire hydrants. In some municipalities, the water department takes care of everything in regards to fire hydrants, including pressure and GPM testing annually. In other cities, the FD needs to annually inspect and pressure test every hydrant manually, and perhaps the water department does not want to paint them. Obviously the FD doesn't have a strong urge to spend a weeks every year or two painting and repainting all of their own fire hydrants.
Lastly, in areas with public water being suppled by a private company and not a municipality, there can be serious tensions between these companies and various fire departments. Fire departments take water without have a meter to take into account how much they use, and often do not report their water use. Water companies need to report unexplained water loss and may need to pay fines for this unexplained loss of water. Because of this and other reasons such as a private company not wanting to repair broken pipes if they are broken during annual FD pressure testing, private companies will not allow any FDs to test their hydrants, under the threat that they will literally remove the fire hydrants from the ground. Because fire hydrants are not simply used for the fire department, but for maintenance on a water system. They have the right to do this (at least in my area) because those hydrants belong to the private company.
Informative video
the city in which I live kept it's hydrants yellow and color coded the caps only. We also utilize a lot of dry hydrants in towns and villages along lakes and rivers which are made of a 6 inch diameter pipe that runs a short distance direct to a lake, river, or pond. The towns and villages often just hook a pumper truck to the pipe there set.
And my town has various artists who just went around and painted every hydrant in town with faces and outfits seemingly endorsed by the city
Don't know what to do with this information but I'm happy I learned it.
There is definitely a lack of following those NFPA guidelines. Where I am (Long Island), we paint our hydrants all the same color within a fire district. Each district has different colors and that helps with knowing the source of the flow. The color-coding that we do have are on the standpipes. Green, yellow, or red. I haven't used them in ages, so the meanings behind them are forgotten by me. When hydrants are out of service, they aren't bagged or painted. A round cardboard tag goes on the treads of the largest access hole.
Huh. I just always assumed the water damage from fighting the fire was considered a given consequence, and standard practice was just to soak everything and let the insurance people deal with it.
My area doesn't do this. The hydrants are all the same color to show support for a few local teams colors. So I have scarlet and grey hydrants, and black and gold hydrants. Sometimes they'll paint them differently for a week or so to commemorate a festival too.
In 3:05 the fire engineis Finnish Sisu engine in front of the oldest fire house in Helsinki at Korkeavuorenkatu street
do you mean 3:05
Kalevi86 Out of the entire planet, how did you accurately know the street?
I remember when a first floor apartment kitchen fire where I live resulted in the people having to be rescued by the fire department because they were too stupid to go out the front door. They had two doors and they chose to try and get out through the window but got stuck half way not because they were too fat which they were, but because they were too out of shape to get all the way out the window. They got stuck half out and the fire department had to get three guys to help lift them out. The fire never even left the area around their stove which was in the kitchen that was at the end of a dead end hall way. The fire was later determined to be the result of stupidity and not understanding that hot things tend to catch on fire.
What perfect timing- ironically, some kid at my school set a fire in a bathroom to get out of a test today.
BONUS FACT : Some fire districts/municipalities use blue road reflector/markers vs. the clear ones normally used to help us locate hydrants at night, and usually a little to the side of the road it's on. Thus helping us locate them faster.
Have also seen some departments paint their hydrants in reflective paint, though this option is typically more expensive due to paint cost.
When I was a kid we visited a small town in eastern North Carolina that had all of its hydrants painted to look like little people.
All of the fire hydrants in my town are yellow.
Mine are fully yellow as well and they are all connected to city water.
Ours are silver
bunnehontherocks u must live in NYC
madscientistshusta Nope. Oklahoma.
Makes sense, An Edgy Kid. People do love suing nowadays.
What about Yellow?
Yes, some are painted yellow to hide the dog pee:)
All the fire hydrants in my city are yellow lol
Yellow means that the hydrant is connected to the public water system.
So if you have Yellow one outside your house, It means that the pipe of the hydrant is connected to the water source of the faucet of your sink.
Bonus facts. Blue reflectors in the median of a road point out where a hydrant is located bordering the road. In some water districts the hydrants are tapped off a large water main supplying a city, and they're often rated at 2500+ GPM and are painted silver (great for fighting wild fires). And if you live in an area where you think you may have a dead end connected hydrant, make sure your local fire department is inspecting the hydrant every few years, if not yearly, to flush out sediment that gets trapped in the dead end, and to make sure the hydrant is providing the required GPM to supply firefighting needs.
Usually when the snow comes the brush around the hydrants has no leaves and is beat down a bit. We don't get really bad winters here in WA State, so it's usually not an issue.
We also have blue reflectors in the center of the roadway to locate fire hydrants. Each hydrant has a corresponding blue reflector. Makes them much easier to find
steve b we do not get snow where I live so it's not an issue, "DUMBASS".
Some hydrants are also painted the colors of the suburbs they supply. For example, here in Westlake, a suburb of Cleveland, the hydrants are painted green and white.
The color coding system helps when determining how many hose lines can be employed from the fire engine using that particular hydrant as a source.
However, the actual volumes and pressures can vary greatly depending on things like the time of day, whether or not the water company has adjusted the flow pattern, and also if someone else is using (or has open) another hydrant on that particular main.
It is the water company’s responsibility to regularly test each hydrant for actual pressures and viability, but for the above reasons many fire departments have their companies also consistently check the hydrants within their response areas. (Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire). The colors typically relate to the size of the water mains they are on, but should reflect actual testing results (and these colors may change if repeated discrepancies are found).
After a local fire the house that was burning had an 8 inch layer of ice on the roof, it was in January. Also all of our fire hydrants are completely red.
20 + years as a firefighter/Medic, and other than in training I have NEVER hooked to a pressurized hydrant. They are not used in a lot of places where there is no municipal water systems. Instead we run tanker shuttles and draft water from open water sources, creeks, ponds, swimming pools, rivers, lakes. Some of the departments have rigs that are nothing more than a huge portable pump, literally drive them into the lake trailing twin 4" supply lines, drop the suction lines in the water and crank up the pump. There are a few "dry hydrants" around as well, those are nothing more than 4-6" pipes laid underground to get access to water from one of the above, closer to a road or parking pad.
In my town the majority of hydrants and Fluorescent Orange with black gloss caps and top. There are all red usually in industrial or retail areas, Yellow near parks, and some are blue in parts of town with low water pressure areas.
Green is such a unusual color to choose for a hydrant. I found it hides well on a grassy right of way with a leafy vine covered wall behind it...
In Canton Massachusetts fire hydrants are red with white caps the neighboring town of Stoughton I believe they're black with yellow caps.
ha - I actually knew this one - we don't have fire hydrants in New Zealand (access to water for fire fighting is underground - covered - marked in yellow paint on street - need special tool to access) - but when I lived in Canada noticed the different colours and since lived next to a fire station asked one of them. different water flow - makes perfect sense.
As a firefighter, I have three things:
1) 1:00 NFPA is the National Fire Protection Association, not Agency. It's a voluntary association of fire and life safety professionals, fire protection engineers, & manufacturers, not a federal agency like EPA or FEMA.
2) 2:00 That's an NYC hydrant. Some municipalities paint hydrants to not stand out. Some are even green. My department paints publicly maintained hydrants orange and privately maintained hydrants red.
3) Firefighters call hydrants plugs because in the old days they used hollowed out logs as water pipes. When a fire broke out, they'd dig up the log pipe and cut a hole in it to get water for the bucket brigade. After the fire, the log pipe would be plugged. To this day, "catching the plug" is what we call hooking into a hydrant.
Nifty, i have a solid red fire hydrant in front of my house, makes sense since my house is over 100 years old with old galvanized pipes and a wimpy 9gpm, i would assume said hydrant would be of similar age but likely bigger/better pipes.
Steven Wright once said "I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere the place!"
Yellow with blue cap in my neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky
During the US Bicentennial, (1976) a lot of hydrants got repainted in red/white/blue schemes. Some were pretty creative, including one that was made to resemble a (colorful) western-type monk. Someone hung a sign on it a few days later that read, "I'm not a monk; I'm a friar hydrant."
Of course once 1976 was over, they went back and repainted all the hydrants yellow. I was disappointed.
The "Color Coded" Fire Hydrants is a recommendation. I've haven't seen any community that has used the recommendations yet.
However!
In the United States, Fire Hydrants come in Red. Over 30 odd years ago, we were allowed to paint the Fire Hydrants all around the country. So you might see a hydrant painted like R2D2 or like a corn stalk or one of many other creative designs.
If I were a fireman, I would know the pressure on every line in my system. If not you can check the records at the station, not that it matters!! You only have 1 setup on your truck!!!! So you'll just have to deal with it.
ANOTHER Bonus Fact.
The UK also has fire hydrants but they are not aboveground like the American counterparts.
Instead they are usually right next to a yellow stone sign with the letter H on them, or under thick metal plates on the ground labled FH or just H.
The thing I like about fire hydrants is they always provide an open parking spot.
I deliver stuff from my hardware store, and I notice in different towns, some are green and yellow, some are all silver, and some are all red.
As a FireFighter I can attest to the varied colors even in the same fire districts. It is the rookies job primarily to paint the hydrants ever year when that hydrant is due up for testing. Every engine company I know of drills in the heads of their rookies the approximate rating of the different hydrants throughout their territory and God help the poor soul who screws it up when asked. I had to run about 20 miles extra during pt for the times I messed up and I only did it 2 or 3 times as a rookie.
steve b Well first tell me how many different water systems and different color code systems u have in ur departments zone? I had 4 different water systems all using different color code systems in my first departments zone not to mention the different system we provided mutual aid coverage to. Oh that's right, ur just an Internet troll who has never once laid down your life to help someone else so u can go fuck yourself and shut the fuck up.
In New York City, the RED fire hydrants are designated as larger water main water supply, which are a high pressure hydrant. They were crucial for the Super Pumper hook up site.
Interesting, thanks! In your research, did you find out what a red hydrant with a white or yellow top means? Thanks.
Is the flow rate they give just based on the flow rate of the hydrant without the truck attached, or do they incorporate a rough value that assumes a value for the headloss of the truck?
If I spraypaint the hydrant in my yard the color it already is because the paint is chipping is it ok?
Who knew? Great video.
Around where I live I noticed that the fire hydrants change based on what city it was in.
Bonus fact: That little blue raised pavement marker that always sits off center on suburban streets indicates where a fire hydrant is located and on what side of the street it is on.
Near my home is a somewhat ritzy shopping center, and for many years, in the center of the courtyard stood a fire hydrant. Originally it was yellow. Then they painted it red. Then they painted it back to yellow. Then they painted it metallic gold?! And then it went back to red, before they removed it altogether because people either kept running into it or they had to constantly keep a fence around it so that people would see. I have a feeling the metallic paint was to match up with the aesthetic of the plaza but definitely confused me at the time.
Hats off to firefighters. Never knew their job was THIS complicated!
In the park&forest service.Creeks,rivers, lakes have weirs built into them to pump out the water.You could see the level drop.You have to dig to the mineral earth, the fire can burn thru the roots. Smokejumpers:good too the last jump!
Wow, you really upgraded your wardrobe, Simon. New shirt, and wrinkle-free!
Here'bouts in TN, legend has it you can call 911 for fires... but somebody will usually show up with marshmallows anyways. :o)
Another effect in using water you overlooked is that by saturating the fuel source (such as wood or fabric) you make the fuel more difficult to burn. Another fire safety fact worth noting is that for grease fires in the kitchen, it's recommended to never use water. Water and oil don't mix and the water can cause the grease to spatter, spreading the fire. The recommended action, if the fire is still contained within the pan, is to either suffocate it by putting the lid on or douse the fire in flour (having an effect much like throwing dirt on a camp fire to extinguish it). The most important thing you can do in the event of a kitchen fire is to not panic. When cooking, always be aware of the risk of fire and be prepared to take the appropriate action should one break out.
I'm thinking back to when my high school's art club - in honor of the bicentennial - took on the task of repainting all the fire hydrants in town, giving each one its own unique design.
The fire department must have been OK with that because a lot of those fancy fireplugs remained fancy for years after the bicentennial.
There are many towns that don't follow those recommendations. I have lived in a couple myself and they are painted the town's school colors.
I have purple hydrants with white caps in my neighborhood. Florida,USA
Australia's fire hydrants are flat and are flush with the road. (Well some of them, some can be above-ground too, but I'm used to the flat ones.) They do tend to be painted for more visibility and can have paint arrows pointing to them as well.
When I was near Dayton Ohio the hydrants were painted white with blue tops and caps.
I always wondered if other people go into the inner city when it snows just to build snowmen around fire hydrants as i do.
Iv never seen anyone hit one, but it my reson detre` too!
Taking into account that different cities might choose different colors to identify the hydrant, some color mixes wouldn't work very well, especially at night, such as red and orange or green and blue.
Bonus fact: Pouring water on a grease fire will make the situation worse, as the water will spread the burning grease around. Instead, grease fires should be smothered with a more solid substance such as sand. Sand also works for various other chemical fires which is why you can usually find a bucket of sand in chemistry labs.
Never personally tried it, so I've only gone by what others have told me. If it's more like a fire ball, then it's still a bad idea.
Fair enough. I have seen Mythbusters, but I guess I haven't seen that episode.
James Currie
The water and grease separate, spewing burning grease and boiling water everywhere.
You can use AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam). The Navy stresses in their firefighting prograam to use this in a liquid (Bravo) fire. That mistake was made on the Forrestal fire when they sprayed a jet fuel fire with water.
HauntedShadowsLegacy and at... I think you call them gas stations in america? Not sure in Ireland we call them petrol stations, or supermarkets if you live rurally
In Indianapolis all the fire hydrants all seem to be sea green, or at least they did when I lived there (1976-2003).
Well not in the town that I live in because we have an annual paint the fire hydrant contest door all the fire hydrants are painted different things
Didn't realize there was a cap color difference. Does a color coated metal plate which sort of resembles a oversized frisby count? Because that's what I've seen, coarse I live in New York, so not sure if that matters much.
Around here the hydrants tend to be painted the colors of the local high school. I guess they have not heard of the NFPA code.
My dad was a firefighter (volunteer station) and when i got my drivers license I volunteered to repaint the hydrants to help out. I was never explained this. I was handed two cans of red paint a wire brush and a couple paint brushes. In fact in the 2 states ive lived in i have only seen red and yellow hydrants.