Fighting Fire Without Needing Hydrants

Fire hydrants. They’re an important tool to fight fires. In Pequot Lakes rural areas and cold winters make it challenging to be able to rely on fire hydrants all the times. But the few hydrants in our area are regularly checked and loaded.
To keep them from freezing in the winter, the hydrants’ water pipes and valves are buried eight feet below the ground, hopefully deeper than the frost line. They also have to make sure they shut off the water properly after they’re used.
Because Pequot Lakes Fire Department covers mostly a rural area, they’ve learned how to adapt to not needing to use fire hydrants, which lessens the hydrants’ chances of freezing during the winter.
Pequot Lakes Water on Wheels, or WOW, consists of three water tanker trucks hauling almost 8,000 gallons between them. And that’s not including the fire engines’ 1,000 gallon capacity. With that much waterpower, there’s little need to worry if you don’t see a hydrant.

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