Fire Departments Ask Residents To Shovel Around Hydrants

(KNSI) — Fire departments are reminding residents to make sure and clear snow around any fire hydrants located on their property.

Sartell Fire Chief Peter Kedrowski says crews don’t need much space to make things work.

“The biggest thing is that we have just room for a firefighter to get around there. To have enough room to take off the caps and then connect the hose to it, so about the size of one person, a couple feet.”

Around our area, hydrants are spaced roughly 300 feet apart. Fires double in size roughly every 30 seconds. Kedrowski says easy access could be the difference between saving a house and having it become a total loss in a fire.

“If we’d have to go to a second hydrant or beyond, we may have to actually get a second or third truck involved, which could actually mean somebody losing their whole house when it didn’t need to be.”

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