EDITORIAL:
Of Hydrants and Standpipes
The front-page story in last week’s edition about a brush fire in Overton (January 16, 2008: Brush Fire Stopped Before Destroying Homes) elicited some questions from our readers regarding the report that “the closest fire hydrant was roughly a mile away.” To be exact, the closest actual fire hydrant was two thirds of a mile away from the fire. In any case, it was far enough that firefighters had to drive their trucks from the remote hydrant, where they could quickly fill the truck with water, and then back again, to where the fire was being fought.
The point of contention by readers who were at the scene seemed to hinge on the fact that only a third of a mile from the fire there was, what is referred to as, a standpipe. It was implied that this, more easily accessible, standpipe ought to have been used instead of the more remote fire hydrant. The difference between a standpipe and a fire hydrant is size. The pipe running to a standpipe is two and a half inches. The pipe running to a fire hydrant is an eight-inch pipe. According to experts at the Station 74, the standpipe has very low pressure and is only able to deliver, at best 100 to 200 gallons per minute. A fire hydrant, on the other hand, is able to deliver an average of 1,500 gallons per minute.
This of course leads to a perplexing and, depending on how far away the fire hydrant is from your house, frightening question. Why have houses and businesses been allowed to be built without proper fire protection infrastructure? And who should be responsible, at this point, to remedy this situation?
Too often fire damage to local buildings is vastly increased because the fire department does not have sufficient water to douse the flames. A good example is the house fire that took place on New Years day. The fire department had to pump water out of a pond on the property to get water to the fire. Another recent example was the fire which destroyed the Moapa Valley Mortuary in May of last year. According to Fire Department Rural Coordinator Kurt Leavitt, at the time, there was only two standpipes nearby from which the fire fighters were able to draw water for the Mortuary fire.
It is a comfort to know that the County is now requiring homes and businesses to put in proper fire protection infrastructure. Unfortunately, the question of who should pay for this is not discussed and it is usually thrown at the feet of the builder who is perceived to have the deepest pockets. In the case of the Mortuary, it is Brian Rebman and his partners who will be responsible for running the eight-inch line for the fire hydrant. The added cost to the Mortuary is estimated at roughly $100,000. In the future, those who build businesses or homes along that pipeline will benefit from it being there. But Rebman and his partners must dish out the huge up-front expense of installing the line; all of this over the top of the cost of rebuilding the structure.
To his credit, Rebman is taking this all in stride; counting it as a cost of doing business. Now that the worst has happened, however, Rebman’s business is left holding the tab for the whole neighborhood’s fire protection; a problem it inherited. The injustice of the problem, in this case and many like this, is obvious. The problem of who should fix it is not so obvious.
Finally, it is unsettling that there are so many large areas in Moapa Valley where this problem exists and little is being done to solve it. In some places, like the Cottonwood Avenue area, entire neighborhoods of homes have been allowed to be built without any fire hydrants. This is certainly not the only neighborhood in town with this problem. There are many. But no one seems to be too worried about the problem right now. This is, most likely, because it is a very expensive and messy problem to worry about. It is a problem that is easier to set aside and worry about another day…that is, unless the worst should happen today. Unfortunately, in those neighborhoods, ‘the worst’ is just one careless match-strike away.
