Much of Virginia’s Fairfax County has a decidedly urban feel, but there are still rural pockets where no infrastructure exists to support fire hydrants.
That left firefighters often deploying tankers to make up for the shortage of water when they initially responded to a scene.
A more elegant solution, however, was the installation of dry hydrants – an underground piping system that connects to a local water source, such as a pond, that can feed firefighting operations when a truck hooks up to it to provide the pump.
Master Technician Pete Kosenko and the Fairfax Fire Department recently finished installing four dry hydrants in the county’s Clifton neighborhood. The project took a lot of planning. Water sources had to be identified, private landowners had to agree to participate and funds had to be acquired.
With funding from the Virginia Department of Fire Programs and the Virginia Forestry Department the project got underway back in 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a pause in the action, but the department recently finished the installation of its third dry hydrant, increasing the level of protection to the neighborhood.
Read more about the project here.