Don't paint fire hydrants, fire officials warn
An innocent act by a home owner in Paradise has fire officials warning folks to leave fire hydrants alone.
A woman in Paradise, who unintentionally got herself in trouble, posted a photo of her newly painted fire hydrant on social media.
She said the hydrant on her front lawn was a "rust bucket" and didn't look good — so she painted it to look like a dalmatian.
She said she was told by the Town of Paradise that hydrants cannot be painted.
The town said in a release the painted hydrant was brought to its attention and the resident was told they could not paint it for "safety reasons," adding that "the safety of residents is of utmost importance."
There's still no word if the dalmatian painted hydrant has been repainted.
Don't touch the hydrants
You may notice fire hydrants are painted different colours. That's for a reason. An important reason.
It's because different colours are used to let firefighters know how much water is coming out of the hydrant.
The color codes are standards set by the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) and each municipality is required to maintain hydrants according to those standards.
"If you have a hydrant that's yellow but has a blue top on it, that particular hydrant would be delivering at least 15 hundred gallons per minute or greater," said Don Byrne, acting fire chief with the St. John's Regional Fire Department.
"A red top would deliver 500 gallons per minute or less."
Tactical decisions made based on colour
Byrne said the hydrant's colour offers critical information when firefighters arrive at a scene and time is precious.
"They'll look at that hydrant and how much water they have available to them to fight that fire," Byrne said.
There are four color codes: blue, green, orange and red.
Byrne said sometimes the caps on the sides are coloured, but that isn't necessary.
All that matters, he said, is that the cap on the top is visible.
Leave them alone
"Please don't paint your fire hydrants," Byrne said.
He said he understands the appeal of wanting to beautify something on your front lawn, but the safety ramifications are too great.
"Those colours that are there are very important to your fire service," he said.
Byrne has been a fire fighters for 40 years and has seen things like this before.
A few years ago someone built a retaining wall on their property, beyond the hydrant to the curb, using concrete blocks and completely surrounded the hydrant.
"So they just moved it [the retaining wall] out so the very top of the hydrant was the only thing that was showing," said Byrne.
Byrne said he saw a pink hydrant years ago, not far from the main fire hall in downtown St. John's.
There was also one coloured pink, white and green, the colours of what's commonly referred to as the Newfoundland Republic flag.
Byrne said when they see this, it's reported by them and the municipalities take it from there.
