HELENA – Snow-buried fire hydrants can be a safety issue during severe winter weather.
Local officials are trying to prevent potential dilemmas in case of an emergency by informing citizens to ensure hydrants outside of their homes and on sidewalks are clear and visible.
Ken Wood, the assistant fire chief of operations for Fire Station One with the Helena Fire Department, urges patrons to not push heavily accumulated snow and ice over fire hydrants, leaving them unseen or hard to get to during an emergency fire.
“It’s important, if we can get the help of the citizens of Helena when they’re removing snow from their sidewalks, if we can get them to not pile up the snow around the fire hydrant that would be a real help for us,” Wood said.
The fire department would appreciate everyone working together to keep hydrants open and clear for safety.
“If they’re willing,” Wood continued, “to just clear out snow around them, that would be really helpful because when we are coming into a fire, and we’ve got a lot of things going on, and we look for those hydrants as we are coming in to a structure fire, so that we can hook up to them, if we can’t find them, that’s of course, going to be a problem.”
For more information on how to aid fire officials during this winter season, please visit here.
-Reported by Christine Sullivan/MTN News
