Northpinellas: Belleair's hydrants face test of volume, pressure

BELLEAIR -- On the heels of a massive house fire in which firefighters needed more water than the neighborhood's hydrant could supply, the town is having its hydrants tested this week.

The town signed off on the $3,400 contract to a hydrant servicing consultant in July, well before the Sept. 12 fire. Town Manager Steve Cottrell said the testing has nothing to do with the house fire, which investigators say was set by arsonists.

Town officials said the hydrants are tested annually, but town records show that it has been more than two years since the last tests. No testing was done in 2000.

Hydrants should be tested at least once a year, according to recommendations by the American Water Works Association, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization that provides standards for water utilities.

"It slipped through," said O. David Brown, the town's superintendent of water production and distribution.

Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day this week, each of the town's estimated 130 hydrants will be examined to make sure it is operational and measured for volume and pressure.

In the Sept. 12 fire at 19 Ambleside Drive, the hydrant on the block, connected to a 6-inch water main, was putting out 500 gallons per minute.

That's about enough water to run either one deck gun from a fire engine or three handheld hoses, said Dwaine Booth, assistant director of Pinellas County EMS and Fire Administration. Five hundred gallons per minute would knock out a fire in about two rooms, he said. The home at 19 Ambleside Drive was 6,000 square feet.

The county system is designed to flow between 700 and 1,000 gallons per minute, Booth said, although not every hydrant will meet that minimum. Hydrants on dead-end streets such as Ambleside Drive will have less water, he said.

The American Water Works recommends flows of 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per minute, spokeswoman Sabrina McKenzie said.

The town's hydrant testing in April 1999 showed that the majority of the hydrants put out between 600 and 900 gallons per minute.

But 16 hydrants in Belleair flowed at less than 500 gallons per minute in the last testing. Among the lowest readings were on N Pine Circle -- Mayor George Mariani's neighborhood -- where the hydrants put out 325 and 354 gallons per minute. Cottrell said that block and two others are slated for road and water line improvements in the coming year.

"Anything less than 500 is really poor," said McKenzie of American Water Works. "It's not recommended."

In addition, when the hydrants were last tested, the city halted tests on 21 hydrants after residents complained it was discoloring their water, Brown said. No pressure or volume readings were done on those hydrants.

Discoloration in the water supply is a common occurence when hydrants are tested. Cottrell said testing will not be halted this time around.

"We need to test them," Cottrell said. "It may be a little inconvenient."

Firefighters who arrived at the burning home on Ambleside Drive around midnight quickly realized they would need more water for such an unusually large fire, Fire Chief Joe Pidala said. There was water on the blaze in less than four minutes, and no one was injured.

"There was no more damage to the structure from the moment we arrived," Pidala said. "I'm very happy with the way the fire turned out. It went very, very well. Obviously, I felt bad there was a loss."

To get more water, firefighters had to run 3,000 feet of hose and connect to a hydrant in Clearwater a half-mile away, a process that took at least 40 minutes.

"Whey you lay 3,000 feet of hose, that's a lot," Pidala said. "Is it a long time? It depends. For this fire it turned out very, very well."

Emergency communication tapes released by the county reveal that firefighters repeatedly asked for more water in radio transmissions to the commander on the scene. About 40 minutes into the fire, for example, a firefighter is heard to say: "Chief, we can get a lot closer to the fire. We haven't been able to do that because we haven't had enough water pressure to put ourselves in that position."

The home, which was under construction, was destroyed. Monday, there was nothing left at the site except charred debris and concrete blocks.

Said Pinellas County's Booth: "It's not often we have a burnout like this."

Back to North Pinellas news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

From the Times
North Pinellas desks