::: COMMUNITY NEWS

The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District's hydrant guidelines say hydrants should have three feet of clearance from any plantings, and surrounding plantings should never be more than half the height of a hydrant. The idea, of course, is to make sure the hydrant is visible from the street. The requirements are about to be enforced in Rancho Murieta. Adapted from Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District illustration

CSD, fire officials will begin enforcing rules on hydrant clearance

Published Sunday, August 11, 2002

Ever since the latest house fire in the community, residents have started to pay more attention to where the nearest fire hydrant is located. In some cases, especially on the North, it’s like playing “Where’s Waldo?"

But no one's smiling about it any longer. An enforcement effort is about to begin. If homeowners don't make sure fire hydrants are clearly visible, the clearing work will be done for them -- and they'll be billed. Mike Berklich, Community Services District director of field operations, said the district will announce an enforcement effort around hydrant visibility in the next issue of the CSD's Pipeline publication. If homeowners don't correct problems, Berklich said, "we’ll have to do it and charge them." The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District has established guidelines for hydrants. With few exceptions, they are to be painted white. They are supposed to be located in the middle of a cleared area that’s three feet in diameter. Nearby landscaping should not be taller than half the height of the hydrant. The hydrant should be visible from the front as well as both sides. District Fire Inspector George Apple agrees that it’s usually the responsibility of a community's water provider to see that the guidelines for fire hydrants are met. But in Rancho Murieta, he believes the responsibility lies with the homeowners' association, the Rancho Murieta Association. So there will be enforcement pressure applied to the RMA in addition to the CSD's enforcement effort. Apple plans an inspection of the community's hydrants in the near future. He said he will notify the RMA if corrections are necessary. The association would be given 14 to 30 days to make corrections. There would be a follow-up inspection and a second letter if the conditions were still unsatisfactory. Failure to comply with the fire district’s standards would ultimately result in a citation, Apple said. From time to time, fire personnel bring maintenance issues to the attention of the CSD, Berklich said. One time it was flowers blocking a hydrant. The CSD contacted the homeowner and the offending flowers were removed. Sometimes the CSD takes the initiative. That was the case when a landscaper installed a boulder in front of a hydrant. The CSD notified the resident and the rock was removed by the next morning. In another instance, the CSD replaced a bad hydrant and corrected a visibility problem at the same time. The old hydrant “was half-buried by landscaping,” Berklich said. The CSD is currently working with several homeowners to correct visibility problems, including a hydrant that is virtually enclosed in a hedge. The CSD is responsible for maintaining the hydrants.

Sometimes, even from close-up... ... you can't see the hydrant. And sometimes they've been overtaken by plantings. The blue dots in the street that mark hydrant locations are sometimes lost to heavy equipment or vandals.

“These are our water facilities,” said CSD General Manager Ed Crouse. “If it’s hard for us to see, it’s hard for us to maintain. We make sure valves are open, check flow, maybe take water samples. That’s why we like them to be open and have good access. That also supports the firefighting need to have it visible and have access.” The CSD also maintains the white paint.

Twice in the past year houses have been destroyed by fire. In each case, firefighters failed to initially hook up hoses to the nearest hydrant.

Firefighters have maps to help them locate hydrants. Why didn’t the maps lead them to the closest hydrant?

According to Battalion Chief Tom Perkins of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, “The maps are only as good as the source.”

Among its other hydrant responsibilities, Perkins said the CSD is required to provide information about hydrant locations to the fire department for its maps.

The CSD says it has provided a map of the community’s water system, including hydrant locations, to the fire district at the request of local Fire Station 59.

“They just asked if we had anything to help them out,” said Berklich. “It wasn’t mandatory.”

The CSD is in the process of updating its map to include new areas on the South. In the future, Berklich said, the map will be amended by developers as part of the plans they are required to submit to the CSD.

“Developers put them (hydrants) in, then they’re approved by the county and the fire department,” noted Berklich. “There’s one within 250 feet of wherever you live.”

Perkins said the fire stations maintain their own maps, based on the information provided to them. Fire Inspector Apple said fire personnel check hydrants and review the maps during area familiarization drills conducted several times a year to acquaint firefighters with the area they serve.

“No one is familiar with all the hydrants in a district,” Perkins said, and even if they were, arriving at a fire scene in the dark of night is disorienting. He said firefighters often aren’t given a house number, so they arrive at a fire with a general sense of where the hydrants are in the area, thanks to the map, but without a location specific to the burning structure.

As for the blue dots -- squares of reflective plastic that are placed on the road surface to signal the location of a hydrant -- the firefighters can’t depend on them being there, Perkins said. They rely on their maps and observation.

The hydrant across the street from the nearly completed new home on De La Cruz Drive that burned last month wasn’t marked by a blue dot on the night of the fire. Sgt. Greg Remson of CSD Security reports he cleared away brush from the hydrant to help firefighters locate it.

Fire personnel believe the fire was caused by a careless act probably related to painters staining cabinets in the home the day before. The house, which was close to completion, was destroyed.

Today, there is a blue dot in place again on the street in front of the hydrant. Rancho Murieta Association maintenance workers have been placing the dots throughout the community to replace ones removed during street resurfacing work and those lost to heavy construction traffic.

Perkins said a typical problem with the dots has been their appeal to teenagers who pry them up. Maintenance personnel use heavy-duty epoxy to attach the dots to the streets.