Plum municipal authority will color code fire hydrants to delineate flow rates

Firefighters in Plum soon will know how much water a hydrant can provide just by looking at it.

At the request of the borough and its volunteer fire departments, the Plum Borough Municipal Authority will color code the roughly 600 fire hydrants in the borough.

That work is tentatively expected to start Sept. 23, coinciding with hydrant flushing, authority Manager Howard Theis said. It is expected to take into next year to complete.

Theis could not say how much it will cost, but authority employees will be doing the work.

Determining the water supply is one of the first things a commanding officer has to assess upon arriving at a fire scene, said Steve Marsh, chief of the Logans Ferry Heights department.

“This gives us a very visual, very quick representation of what we’re working with in that area,” he said. “Depending on what color it is, we may have to change our plan of attack.”

Entire hydrants will not be painted. According to Marsh, only the side caps and top will be color-coded.

Red will indicate a hydrant produces less than 500 gallons per minute; orange is 500 to 1,000 gallons per minute; green is 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per minute; and blue is more than 1,500 gallons per minute.

The colors follow a standard set by the National Fire Protection Association.

“That’s what the other municipalities in our area follow,” Marsh said. “That way, if someone comes into our area, we don’t have a definition change on color.”

The authority had a hydraulic model of the hydrant system completed that estimates the flow rates of the hydrants. That information was given to the fire departments, Theis said.

It found few areas with flow rates of 500 gallons per minute and several in the range of 750, but most were above 1,000 gallons and some were over 2,000, according to Theis.

“We’re comfortable with 95% of the information that’s out there,” he said. “We’re narrowing down that other 5%.”

Concerns about Plum’s fire hydrants arose in August 2023 after the fatal house explosion in the Rustic Ridge neighborhood. Authorities found the hydrants there could not provide enough water for a single house fire in that neighborhood.

The authority completed a new waterline connection on Mike Thomas Way to increase the capacity of the hydrants in Rustic Ridge.

The cause of the explosion, which killed six, remains under investigation.

Borough council President Paul Dern commended the municipal authority for the work it is doing, including color-coding the hydrants.

“We’re glad they’re doing it. It’s going to help the firemen in an emergency situation when they respond to incidents,” he said. “I’m glad we were able to work together and get it done.”