2023 ANNUAL REPORT-FINAL

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EMERGENCY SERVICES

Frederick County Fire and Rescue Rural Water Supply Efforts

Many areas throughout Frederick County have fire hydrants hooked to a municipal water system to support firefighting efforts; however, many areas do not. Typically, the absence of fire hydrants is in the more rural regions of the County. Our firefighting tactics need to be adaptive and dynamic to handle both situations. In areas where we provide fire protection not supplied with fire hydrants, we must rely on rural water supply operations. What is the difference in rural water supply operations? The primary initial water supply we utilize in these operations is carried on large water capacity apparatus called ‘Tankers’. Locations without fire hydrants have been pre-determined and warrant t he automatic dispatch of these ‘Tankers’ which usually carry 3,000 gallons or more of water compared to a normal fire engine which carries only around 1,000 gallons of water. Our initial firefighting efforts are supplemented by these tankers until we transition to a more formalized water source. These water sources could include but are not limited to ponds, rivers, streams, dry hydrants, cisterns, or regular fire hydrants in relative proximity. However, as is often the case in these rural settings, the water source is not in close proximity so the tankers are then used to shuttle water from the source to the fire scene. What is the difference between a regular fire hydrant I see along the street and a dry fire hydrant? Regular fire hydrants are connected to the municipal water system and always have water supplying them though it usually resides below the grounds frost line to prevent freezing. Once these fire hydrants are opened, they receive a continuous water supply of various pressures from the municipal water supply. A dry fire hydrant is a non pressurized pipe system permanently installed in water sources such as ponds, rivers, or streams that permits the withdrawal of water by drafting with a fire truck to provide a reliable water source close to the incident scene for fire extinguishment. Frederick County Fire/Rescue’s mission regarding rural water supply operations is to provide rapid, efficient, expandable, and uninterrupted water supply to the non-hydrant areas of the County with 1,000 gallons per minute up to a total of 50,000 gallons. In 2023, Frederick County Fire/Rescue spent many hours strengthening the ability to provide water to rural areas of the County for fire suppression efforts. These efforts include planning for the installation of 30,000-gallon cisterns in the Sabillasville & Wolfsville areas, and repairs to several existing dry-hydrants that had been inoperable. Funding was approved in FY2023 through the Capital Improvement Projects budget to allow for improvement to our rural water infrastructure and equipment over the next 2 fiscal years. Allocated funding will be used for the bi-annual installation of a 30,000-gallon cistern in remote areas, installation of additional dry hydrants, continual maintenance of current dry hydrants, as well as additional equipment to improve our effectiveness in tanker shuttle operations.

Last but not least, Tanker 10 was placed in-service at the Guardian Hose Company (Thurmont Company 10) in October 2023. This new tanker carries 3,000 gallons of water and will greatly enhance our water supply capabilities in the rural water areas of northern Frederick County.