Fire Hydrant Testing Causes Dirty Water in El Dorado

El Dorado firefighters are testing more than 700 fire hydrants this week. Assistant Fire Chief Chad Mosby said, “We’ll take the caps off hydrant- open it fully, take some pressure readings on each discharge—so it will tell us roughly how many gallons per minute we can get out of each fire hydrant.” Chief Mosby says the hydrants haven’t been tested in about ten years. “We try not to do it anymore than we have to because it does stir citizens up.” Mosby says that the test could cause your water to be a little murky, but it’s nothing that you should be worried about. Mosby said, “Most of the time they think the water is contaminated but it’s not. Manes have sediment in them and it just stirs that up. Usually it settles up in a couple hours to 24 hours.” Since the last test, the city has used grant money to buy new computers and GPS tracking systems for each fire truck. Now when fire fighters are called to a blaze they will know exactly where the closest hydrant is and exactly how much water it can disperse. “If we pull up at a house of building, knowing how much water we can get out of a hydrant is very crucial.” And the test helps improve the city’s ISO or fire safety rating. The lower the rating, the less you pay for home insurance.