Firefighters help JW identify problem water hydrants across the city
It is imperative for faulty, missing or leaking fire hydrants to be fixed as quickly as possible to enable firefighters to tackle a blaze
Roosevelt Park Fire Department conducts regular checks on fire hydrants in their district.
Tasked with checking a minimum of 40 a month, the painstaking work is critical to ensure the mechanisms are functioning properly, should they be needed in an emergency.
They check for equipment that has been broken, damaged, or vandalised – information that is shared with Johannesburg Water, the entity tasked with maintaining the infrastructure. Water pressure is also checked to ensure enough supply is available to battle a blaze.
The Northcliff Melville Times joined a team as they conducted site inspections last week.
The above-ground hydrants are generally easy to spot during the day, while the street-level underground ones were much harder to locate. Much of the signage used to alert firefighters to a hydrant is either missing or faded. At night, this task would be infinitely harder.
The crew removed grass covering the yellow markers on pavements, cut shrubs that were encroaching on the infrastructure, and checked the water was running at appropriate levels.
It is critical that the pipes are opened every now and again to flush the rust and dirt that creeps into the pipes. This will badly damage the fire truck equipment and in an emergency, there is no time to do these checks.
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