Lack of fire hydrants in Harmar neighborhood concerns residents, fire chief

Residents of Harmar’s Werner Camp neighborhood, tucked along the Allegheny River, have great views of the water and little traffic.

But it’s what they don’t have that should be of concern: fire hydrants.

“It’s definitely not safe,” said Allegheny Valley fire Chief Jay Zangrille, following a weekend fire there.

Harmar officials did not return calls for comment on Werner Camp’s lack of hydrants.

To fight the early-morning blaze Saturday, firefighters were forced to close normally busy Freeport Road and a set of active railroad tracks to run 2,000 feet of hose from a hydrant across the highway near a Target store to a burning home at 23 Werner Camp Road.

Crews from neighboring departments used water tanker trucks to help douse the flames. Nobody was injured in the incident.

Zangrille said residents have a right to be concerned about the lack of hydrants.

If the fire had taken place later in the day, when traffic along Freeport Road near the turnpike is especially heavy, the situation could’ve turned “really bad,” he said.

Zangrille said he’s unsure why the community doesn’t have hydrants, saying he has to draw up new plans for how his crews will respond to any future fires without ready access to nearby spigots in Werner Camp.

It’s especially strange, he said, because nearby communities don’t have the same problem.

The neighboring Denny Estates plan has multiple hydrants, and even the more isolated community on Twelve-Mile Island offshore in the river has several hydrants, Zangrille said.

“Hopefully, after this fire, it opens some eyes,” he said.

Varying regulations

Requirements for fire hydrants vary by community.

Westmoreland County, for example, is a mishmash of local regulations.

In Murrysville, if a new residential development is being served by a water line “sufficient to enable the installation of a fire hydrant or hydrants,” the developer must coordinate with municipal officials on the location of any hydrants.

In Penn Township, any new residential building must be within 600 feet of a fire hydrant. In Hempfield, the zoning ordinance specifically addresses mobile home parks, stating hydrants must be within 600 feet of any mobile home, service building or other structure, if they are provided.

Greensburg attorney Dan Hewitt, who has provided solicitor’s service to a number of towns in the county, said many communities rely on insurance-industry recommendations in crafting their hydrant regulations.

Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County officials said they work with towns to place hydrants along public water lines. But, when it comes to private residential developments, their responsibility stops at the master meter, which measures the total water usage for a building or complex.

The National Fire Protection Association has guidelines for fire hydrant placement, but they generally are not legal requirements. The NFPA code suggests hydrants no farther than 1,000 feet from a structure.

Sometimes, those guidelines can be tough to meet, especially for more rural communities.

In Salem Township, which does not have zoning regulations that would cover things like fire hydrants, Supervisor Kerry Jobe said township officials have to work with developers to ensure fire safety is a top priority.

“In the last several years, when a plan comes in for a larger development … we’re having that discussion about fire and safety,” he said.

Jobe said older water lines also can be a problem, not providing enough flow and pressure for fire department use.

“Salem has some water lines that are very low-pressure. They will work for residential use, but the fire department will tell you, when you hook up a pumper, you can drain the line in about five minutes. And all these conversations come into play when we’re talking with developers.”

Not unique

Werner Camp isn’t the only community to suffer from a lack of functioning fire hydrants.

After contending with a lack of working hydrants in a mobile home community during an Oct. 23 fire, East Huntingdon fire Chief Brian Kite said he has a plan in the event his department gets called to another blaze there.

Firefighters will immediately connect to hydrants on Mt. Pleasant-Connellsville Road.

“We’ve already got a game plan figured out,” he said.

That game plan became necessary after firefighters learned a hydrant in the middle of the community was not usable because it lacked water pressure.

They ran hose about 1,500 feet to tap into the closest working hydrant, which was outside the community just off Route 119 between Mt. Pleasant and Scottdale.

Kite notified management of the community of the issue with the fire hydrant after the blaze destroyed a home, but it was unclear whether any changes were made. Regardless, firefighters aren’t even going to mess with it, he said.

“We know what we’re doing if we get called there,” he said.

Additional wrinkle

Werner Camp is not a traditional neighborhood of single-family homes.

Though most residents own their houses, they lease their land from a rental company.

Since 2020, that company has been Evergreen Werner Hancock LLC, part of the larger Evergreen Parke Communities company that owns similar housing developments throughout Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

Teah Gandi, a partner at Evergreen Parke, said her company would “look into what is required to install fire hydrants and the associated costs.”

She said the previous owner had considered them unnecessary.

The lack of fire hydrants is one of several issues residents have raised with the owners, but hydrants have “always been a concern,” according to Werner Camp resident Lisa Roemer.

With her disabled son living across the street, Roemer said the possibility of a fire — and the response to that fire — is a worry.

At a minimum, she said, she’d like to see Harmar or the landowner perform a feasibility study to see what the hydrant installation process would look like.

But, ultimately, she said she’d like to see hydrants permanently dug in.

In the meantime, Roemer said she and several of her neighbors have been meeting to discuss their gripes with ownership, like road conditions and site manager turnover.

Dennis Tovey, who lives a few doors down, is one of the residents who has been attending the meetings. He said it’s better to work with neighbors “as a team” than to make complaints individually.

Beyond the potential destruction fire could bring to their neighborhood, Tovey said he’s also concerned about the effects closing Freeport Road and the railroad tracks to fight a fire could have on the communities around them.

With access to Freeport restricted, he said, it could cause delays for other emergency services or freight hauled by the railroad.

Right now, Tovey said, the lack of hydrants is Werner Camp’s Achilles’ heel.

William Flinn said he’s been living in the neighborhood for more than 50 years. In that time, he said, there have been three or so major fires, any one of which could have been helped by the presence of fire hydrants.

That lack of hydrants, he said, has also raised the rate of his homeowner’s insurance.

Flinn said he thinks his neighborhood would benefit from having hydrants, but he said he’s not holding his breath for change.

TribLive staff writers Patrick Varine and Renatta Signorini contributed.