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I support the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department’s Adopt-a-Hydrant Program. The program encourages citizens to remove snow from around fire hydrants so the Fire Department doesn’t have to waste precious minutes in a fire emergency locating and digging out its hydrant. For this program to work well, shouldn’t the Fire Department know where its own hydrants are? |
The photo shows the hydrant across from our home. I know where the hydrant is, because I see it every day. I would be willing to dig out other hydrants in our neighborhood if I knew where they were. Other people might be willing to participate in the Fire Department’s Adopt-a-Hydrant Program if they knew where to dig.
I sent an email to Deputy Chief Jim Washko and suggested the Fire Department post a detailed fire hydrant locator map on its website. He responded to me quickly and courteously, and he forwarded my suggestion to other command officers in the Department.
Later the same day (Tuesday, December 30) I received an email from Deputy Chief Glenn Lauper. DC Lauper explained that the Fire Department’s maps “…show a general location of the hydrant but are not exact.” He continued, “I spent several hours last winter searching for a fire plug that appeared on our maps as on the corner but was more like in the middle of a yard. I think posting our maps on our website would cause more confusion and frustration.”
I appreciate DC Lauper’s prompt and detailed reply, too. It seems to me the Fire Department really should know the exact location of all its hydrants and other hookups. Since the City supplies the water via pipes to the hydrants, I would think the City’s Water Department ought to know the exact location of hydrants.
Regardless, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology should be used to precisely locate hydrants and then integrate that information into emergency services computer-aided dispatching. This same information can answer citizen’s questions about the location of their neighborhood hydrants.
Many community colleges are offering GIS certification courses to prepare graduates for employment in this field. If North Idaho College (NIC) has such a program, I could not find it in the course catalog. If NIC has a GIS certification program, then maybe course credit could be arranged for an internship with the Fire Department to map the hydrant locations throughout the City. Students would get field experience, and the Fire Department would have precise hydrant location, all at no additional cost to taxpayers.
Addendum: Apparently the University of Idaho has a Certificate Program in GIS.
Too much vision, Bill, not enough bling. Now if you were proposing some new type of artist-designed, LCDC-funded, fire hydrant condo tower, I think the Mayor and City Council would back your proposal 100%.
Comment by Dan — December 31, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Not to mention that in my shortsightedness, I forgot to include a lucrative contract for a high-priced consultant from Oregon or Seattle.
Actually, geographic information systems and geospatial technologies are programs NIC might want to consider offering. Engineering companies, utility companies (water, sewer, gas, electric, data, fiber, RF, etc.) all rely heavily now on those technologies for precision geographic placement and documentation. Public safety agencies are using laser and GIS technologies in a variety of ways.
Comment by Bill — December 31, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
Seriously, though, I recall about 10 years ago how every address in Kootenai Co. was reviewed, and in many cases changed, to comply with 911 (most likely some Fed mandate for emergency services). I forget the specifics. I do remember that our home at the time had an odd-numbered address though we were on the even side of the street. So it changed. I would think that locating hydrants would have been part of that process as well.
We have a good Fire Dept. in this town. It wouldn’t surprise me if they take you up on that offer, Bill. Especially in the neighborhoods with lots of rentals, where the residents may not be eager to remove snow from a hydrant, it would make sense for the FD to have a locator for the hydrants.
There. We just saved the City $75,000.
Or maybe we saved the City $40,000 and the LCDC $35,000.
Comment by Dan — December 31, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
Just for grins I took my handheld GPS and lat/long’d the fire hydrant in the photo. The lat/long is 47.72694, -116.81525. You can enter that into Google maps or just follow this link, and you’ll see how close it is. It’s within a few feet which is the error factor of civilian GPS. Total Stations and similar modern surveying equipment that engineers and public safety uses are more precise.
Comment by Bill — December 31, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
My experience with unknown hydrants (yes they are sometimes unknown) dates back about ten years when I had an insurance issue about how close my home was to a fire hydrant. The developer installed the hydrant but never told the fire district about it. The snow issue, I think, is about ready access not existence, but obviously from my experience, I could be wrong.
Comment by Gary Ingram — December 31, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
Gary,
Yes, it is about access. In its “Adopt-a-Hydrant” memo posted on its website, the Fire Department instructs thus:
It seems logical to me that if the Fire Department doesn’t know exactly where its hydrants are, it can’t tell well-intended citizens where to start digging to unbury them. It also seems logical that since the Water Department provides the water, it should also know exactly where hydrants are. Really, though, the point of my post was to suggest the fire department use locally available resources (students enrolled in the U of I Certificate in GIS program) to precisely identify the location of every hydrant in the City. Sounds like a good class project to me. The students use University or City equipment to get field experience at no labor costs to the City.
Comment by Bill — January 1, 2009 @ 7:40 am
Sounds like a good idea to me, Bill. It’s rather disheartening to discover that the Fire Dept. could be totally in the dark of the location of your nearest hydrant or if you even have one. It was for me; stuff lawsuits are made of if I’d had a fire.
Comment by Gary Ingram — January 1, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Gary,
The City is not in the dark about GIS. It’s been using it for years. Some City departments are slower than others to adopt new technologies.
The same was true with the federal government. Some agencies (DoD, us, a few others) were using GIS for certain projects when the data recording equipment consisted of a GRID portable and battery pack in a backpack and a GPS engine. Now there’s more power in a handheld HP PDA with an onboard GPS chip.
Comment by Bill — January 1, 2009 @ 12:12 pm