Ways to improve fire hydrant access and visibility in winter were discussed at last week’s Board of Aldermen meeting on Jan. 27. The topic arose following January’s fatal fire at 65 Fairfax St., where Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher noted that although hydrants near the home were shoveled free by neighbors, high snow banks obscured them from being quickly spotted by firefighters.

“I've been driving around the city, looking, and some fire hydrants you can see poking out a little bit, but residents are not doing a good job of shoveling out fire hydrants,” said Alderman Bill Roche at the meeting.

“The City's certainly not shoveling them out. I don't know what the answer is, but I'd like the Chief to come up and tell us how he's going to handle fire hydrants being visible and accessible,” Roche added.

In an interview after the Fairfax St. fire, Chief Kelleher explained that fire crews work around the clock to clear hydrants after a storm. But with 1,527 hydrants in the city, they rely on good neighbors to help them get to all hydrants quickly—either by shoveling them or reporting them.

Any shoveling by residents, however, is purely voluntary. There is no regulation stating that property owners must help.

“The citizens if they want to try to help us out, it would be great, but it’s not required,” said Deputy Fire Chief Pat Sullivan via a phone interview. “And if someone spots a hydrant that needs shoveling and they feel they can’t do it, they should give the fire department a call and we’ll send a company to clear it out.”

Solutions proposed by the board include adding four- or five–foot-high flags to the hydrants, offering tax breaks or other incentives to residents who take responsibility to shovel them out and paying firefighters overtime to do the shoveling. Other suggestions included hiring other city employees or using funds from the Summer Jobs youth program to make the task into a winter job for local kids.

Alderman Dennis Sullivan commented that he had put in orders for the use of hydrant flags over the past several years and commended the residents of Fairfax Street for having shoveled out the hydrants prior to the fire.

“Now Alderman [Walter] Pero mentioned the fire on Fairfax Street, and the residents up there did a great job, I understand, at clearing the fire hydrants, but still they had trouble with the snowbanks,” he explained.

Alderman Tom Taylor noted that the City did once have flags on the hydrants, and questioned why they were no longer in use.

No single solution to the issue of fire hydrant access was decided upon in the meeting, and the variables winter weather adds to the equation complicated the matter. 

“If you have the rods, that doesn't guarantee that the fire department is going to have access to a hydrant, especially now given that you have two feet of walls of snow where the hydrants are actually inundated with snow that's turned into ice,” noted Alderman Bill White.

The issue has been referred to the Committee on Public Health and Public Safety, which meets next on Feb. 8 and it was ordered that a copy of the discussion be sent to the chief fire engineer as well.