hydrants | ICE4SAFETY

Adopting a Fire Hydrant – Yours!

February 9, 2011 ICE4SAFETY Leave a comment

NOTICE: SHOVEL READY PROJECT!

Certainly the best (or worst if you so choose) weather in years for advertising that people get out and shovel out their neighborhood Fire Hydrant.

With cold temperatures and mountains of snow burying everything including your local neighborhood fire hydrants people are getting sporadic and often unsupported messages to clean out hydrants while at the same time seeing pictures of fire fighters shoveling out hydrants. People think the fire department is supposed to do this chore?

With over 70% of all fire fighters being volunteers and having a life (sometimes) of their own it is hard to imagine people not wanting to help out by taking a few minutes to clear snow away from hydrants that might be used to save their lives and worldly possessions.

But surprisingly not so, every year seems like the same old, same old…

Maybe you don’t have a hydrant where you live but maybe there is one near where you work? Shovel that one out. How about where you worship? Shovel that one out too. You can envision the rest, family friends, invalid homes….. Don’t forget to dig out access to dry stand pipes in your local pond too. Mention to the snowplow contractor that seems to bank up all the snow on your hydrant to find someplace else…..and explain why.

We’ve made it easier for people to get involved directly by constrcting a Winter Fire Safety Kit that includes posters and forms to “adopt” a hydrant easily. We took the work out of that aspect of it.

Categories: Articles, Safety Related Tags: adopt your hydrant, citizens, community service, fire department, fire plug, fire safety, fund raiser, hydrants, sponsor, winter

Winter Fire Safety Preparedness

December 8, 2010 ICE4SAFETY 4 comments

Hydrant sorely in need of help here….vines too! Houses across the street.

A Cicero NY firefighter responded to our notice rescuing this fire hydrant!

Winter is no time to hibernate when it comes to preparedness and fire safety especially…while you are out shovelling, snow blowing or plowing, please take a few minutes to remove obstructions (SNOW) around your nearby fire hydrant. If you live in a fire district with volunteers remember it may take extra time for them to respond to your fire….those 10 minutes will seem like an eternity. Why have them waste even more time shovelling to your hydrant?

Update 12-12-10: We’ve added a zipped file of posters on the main page of the website and Adopt A Hydrant Certificate files so your FD can create their own posters and let people “adopt” a hydrant for the purposes of ensuring it is clear of any obstruction (snow) in the event of a fire….. check them out…. http://www.ice4safety.com/

More: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8559210/FIND%20THE%20HYDRANT.pdf

Confirm this by watching news on 12-9-10 from ABC WIXT here: http://tinyurl.com/2f2sgcx

Having an obstructed hydrant could result in a delay in knocking down your fire and the sacrifice of 1-2 firefighters that might be better used fighting the fire or doing a rescue…now think about that. Don’t wait.

Get the latest Winter Fire Safety Kit for your organization right here: 12-27-10

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8559210/Winter%20Fire%20Safety%20Program%2012-27-10.zip

We try to support those who will be responding to our calls for help and have done so for years. This idea is certainly timely and important – especially in this retched economy where the cost of services keep going up and the level of service keeps going down.

City of Southfield Michigan Can Do It

Fairfax Virginia can do it too!

Okay here is a hydrant in DEWITT, NEW YORK shoveled out recently(okay, we used a snow blower!) so even a Fat Santa can get around this one ….or a heavily outfitted firefighter. 10 feet of clearance all around so the snow plow won’t block it in. Don’t scrimp here. Teach the kids how to do it.

Suggestions: Town/Village/City could place a family (or families) name on the hydrant that is charged with clearing it out (See Pics) using easily applied label tape or they can implant a locater stake with a flag with the names on it…..and keep a spreadsheet database of names…..contests or business sponsorship (they can clean out theirs as well) are all possibilities. We have included an “Adoption Certificate” in our Fire Safety Zipped File so Fire Chiefs or sponsors can issue them to willing participants…..which should be everyone. This goes for dry standpipes in rural communities as well.