WASHINGTON — You’ve probably shoveled your driveway and cleared the snow off your car, but you’re not done.
Firefighters want you to dig out the fire hydrant closest to your house, as well as 3 feet of space around it.
Why that much room?
“Hoses may need to connect on all three sides of the hydrant while we’re standing on the back,” Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein tells WTOP.
A buried hydrant is just one of the snow-related challenges firefighters faced Tuesday while trying to put out a fire in Potomac.
“Our maps show us where the hydrants should be, but to narrow it down is difficult,” Goldstein said. “If we can look and see that green, or red or black hydrant, and have direct access to it, it will save minutes. Four, five, six minutes of time.”
He said fire crews bring water with them, but not much.
“Each fire engine from Montgomery County brings 750 gallons of water, but … that only lasts us about five minutes of a fire attack,” Goldstein said. “We may run out of water and not sustain a continuous fire attack while we’re trying to hook up to that hydrant.”
That’s probably not something you want to happen at your house.
