Fire hydrants are all around town and most of the time go unnoticed except for when they need to be used by one of DeKalb’s firefighters to put out a blaze.

They’re uniformly red in color in the city of Smithville, nothing seems to be amiss but that’s where the story starts. In February’s meeting of the Smithville Board of Mayor and Alderman, Fire Chief Charlie Parker told the board that a red-topped fire hydrant isn’t the best option.

“Technically the hydrants are supposed to be color coded as far as to what pressure they flow, and in accordance with that ruling, fire departments are not supposed to connect to a hydrant with a red top,” Parker told the board.  “As you know in Smithville, all of our hydrants have a red top because they are not color coded.”

According to NFPA 291, the color coding of hydrants should be as follows:

Color Class Available flow @ 20 PSI residual;

BLUE AA 1500 GPM or more Very good flows;
GREEN A 1000-1499 GPM Good for residential areas; 
ORANGE B 500-999 GPM Marginally adequate; and
RED C Below 500 GPM Inadequate.

Since all of Smithville’s are red, technically the fire department is not permitted to connect its pumper trucks to a Class C as the flow rate is insufficient. Risks to pulling water from an inadequate hydrant include sucking the water out of residential/commercial water supply lines also connected to the system including devices like hot water heaters that need to stay full or they will burn out.

While all the hydrants in Smithville are red, they aren’t all necessarily Class C, they just haven’t been tested and color coded so firefighters can tell by looking at the hydrant what class it is they are connected to.

Parker related it was a sizeable project to get all the hydrants tested and color coded and asked the city for some extra help in getting it done.

“Since it’s fire hydrants, everybody thinks it’s a fire department project but we don’t have the resources or manpower to get them tested,” Parker said. “I’m just coming to you (mayor and aldermen) to see if we can come up with a plan to get the hydrants tested because it will benefit all of us, not just the fire department but also the water department too. We have roughly about 240 hydrants already mapped out but I’m thinking it will probably be closer to 270.”

Fire departments across the country have found the most efficient means to convey this important information to their fire engine companies is to paint the hydrant tops and caps using standardized color codes. These colors give a reasonably accurate picture as to how the hydrant should perform. They are easy to recognize and as fire crews travel the streets performing their various duties, they see these hydrants and get a feel for where the problem areas exist well in advance of a fire alarm being called in.

The city of Smithville will soon have to undertake a project to color code fire hydrants according to their pressure flow capacity in accordance with regulations of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Mayor Jimmy Poss said the city might be able to hire some part time help to assist with the project.