Rather than trying to cobble together water supplies once they are on a fire call, city fire and public works officials are planning to walk through the city’s water infrastructure to better equip crews to fight fires.
The plan has been ongoing but got renewed attention last month when city firefighters, unable to find a fire hydrant able to deliver the necessary water pressure, opened five hydrants before enough water pressure was available to put out a Grand Avenue fire.
Public works officials were at the scene to direct crews to a new 8-inch main nearby that would provide the right pressure.
The aging 4-inch mains that serve a larger portion in the area of Grand Avenue have been problematic in the past, said officials.
The plan is to work out the kinks in the aging system and update fire crews on the inner workings of the water lines.
It’s an issue of old infrastructure and an old neighborhood. We continue to update as we can and can afford to do, said Bill McTygue, director of the Public Works Department.
Last year, public works put in a new 8-inch main to service new development in the area, said McTygue, but updates and the information available to fire crews is sporadic.
Typically fire crews don’t need public works officials on hand because many of the fires can be fought with the water infrastructure as is. But the Wednesday, Jan. 23, fire on Grand Avenue was larger than a typical blaze and required a greater volume of water. In those cases the DPW is on hand to help.
It took crews longer than expected to extinguish the blaze at the two-story, four-unit apartment. The building’s roof and many of its structural supports were badly damaged.
McTygue and Saratoga Springs Fire Chief Robert Cogan plan to study the aging mains to learn how and what can be done to bolster water pressure and improve service to the hydrants.
`The discussion to upgrade systems has been ongoing,` said Cogan. ‘We are going to take a look at marking our hydrants differently.`
The city’s hydrants are color-coded by the diameter of the water mains that service them, said Cogan: red for 4-inch mains, blue for 6-inch and so on.
But the color-coded system does not tip fire fighters off to just how much water volume and pressure they maintain. For a number of reasons, such as new construction or a valve, or valves, not securely fastened, the water pressure varies, he said.
Firefighters are looking to test the flow of all the city’s hydrants to determine their output and identify the hydrant by their flow capacity, not by the size of the main.
There is much work to be done with the city’s water distribution system, said McTygue, but currently the city is wrapped up in millions of storm water upgrades to deal with flooding in areas of the city. Updates to the supply lines are done periodically and are budgeted each year, he said, but the updates are a never-ending construction process competing with several others.
`The only reasonable way for the city to afford this is to do little by little,` McTygue said. `Does the work need to be done? Yes, it does. But it’s not just water we need to keep an eye on.`
McTygue added that as storm water management projects slated for last year and this year wrap up, the department will again shift its focus to updating water service lines.
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