The Greenville Fire Department’s annual fire hydrant inspection is underway.
Fire Chief Ruben Brown said his crew inspects the city’s 1,200 or so fire hydrants for residual flow and static and flow pressures to ensure they are providing adequate water pressure.
Greenville Fire Chief Ruben Brown said they have been testing for a little over a month and a half and should be wrapping up by the end of June.
“We’re more than halfway done with our inspections,” Brown said, noting the reports are turned in to the Fire Ratings Bureau, who comes to inspect the city every five years. Regular inspections ensures not only higher fire ratings for the city, but assurance of knowing the hydrants do work in the event of a fire emergency.
If firefighters do find an issue with a hydrant, it is reported in a priority list to the city’s Public Works Department.
“We’re reporting any hydrant that needs to be repaired or replaced … any deficiencies we find get reported to Public Works,” he said, noting the responsibility for making those repairs and keeping up the maintenance is on the Public Works, not the fire department.
What the fire department does do aside from flow tests, Brown said, is paint the hydrants and trim/weed eat around hydrants in overgrown areas.
“We always like to put a bright paint of coat to make it more visible, especially at night. We’ll also trim if there’s some overgrown grass,” he said.
For those wondering what condition the fire hydrant near their house or business is in, Brown said, typically, hydrants with a white dome indicates the hydrant is dry; yellow caps indicate low water pressure; and if red caps indicate the hydrant is “hot and ready to go,” Brown said, or fully capable.
This year, Brown said the inspections have been going fairly well, aside from finding an increase of damaged hydrants or hydrants with missing caps.
“We have seen an increase in vehicles having accidents and hitting the fire hydrants,” Brown said.
In the event of a house fire, Brown said a minimum of four fire trucks are sent to every house fire, and each unit carries 500-1,000 gallons of water, to leave the street’s water source as a last resort.
“We always come with water, so every fire we have, we don’t necessarily have to connect and use the water source on the street,” Brown said.
Even though these inspections are done annually, Brown said city residents can call the fire department throughout the year to report leaks, missing caps or any other issues at 662-378-1616. For fire emergencies, always call 911.
