Ridgewood Firefighters dig out Hydrant Photo by Boyd Loving
Snow-buried hydrants present unusual fire hazards across North Jersey
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 21, 2014, 11:54 PM
BY JIM NORMAN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Fire hydrants. They’re not just doggy comfort stations, it turns out.
A Garfield firefighter hooking up a hydrant after clearing snow from it – costing valuable minutes — during a house fire Tuesday. The responsibility for keeping hydrants clear of snow varies from town to town.
But on snowy winter days, as Rodney Dangerfield might have said, fire hydrants get no respect. Not from contractors plowing snow from the streets, and not from homeowners shoveling out their driveways.
It seems nobody even misses those ever-faithful neighborhood sentries, standing at the ready to be pressed into service, even when they are covered in many feet of mounded-up snow. Nobody misses them, at least until a fire breaks out, as one did in Garfield on Tuesday, and firefighters have to spend precious minutes chopping ice and snow before they can hook up hoses.
Of course, that’s not supposed to be how it works. What’s supposed to happen is that someone — exactly who that someone is depends on the ordinances in the municipality — is required to make sure that hydrants are accessible when they are needed.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Hydrants_buried_by_relentless_snowstorms_present_an_unusual_fire_hazard.html#sthash.E5XWLqUz.dpuf
