28 HEALTH AND SANITATION
If it ain’ t broke( or stolen), don’ t fix it
By By Matt Chapuran
David Viola, IAPMO CEO In the spirit of the sharing of unique experiences that shape the plumbing industries in our respective nations, the following article looks at the growing concerns around aging fire hydrants and efforts to improve their reliability. Written by IAPMO contributing writer Matt Chapuran, it is the next in a regular series of similar articles that will run in this magazine.
Dave Viola IAPMO CEO
There are perhaps two images that a fire hydrant can immediately conjure in popular imagination. One is in its intended life-saving capacity. In the other, overheated kids pry one open to flood a city street on a broiling summer day. The failure of a fire hydrant can make a community vulnerable.
“ For better or worse, the fire hydrant has looked the same for 100 years,” says Robin Zevotek, principal engineer for the National Fire Protection Association( NFPA), noting that the first patents for fire hydrants date back to the 1850s. Given that, it is perhaps not surprising that methods to innovate the fire hydrant are being sought.“ It’ s technology that’ s ripe for innovation,” Zevotek says.
Venkatesh Kodur, a professor in Michigan State University’ s College of Engineering states that hydrants are the“ backbone for the first responders”, noting that hydrants assist fire departments in routinely dispatching millions of fires annually. He says that the optimal window to respond to a fire is within the first 10 – 15 minutes.“ Lose control and the whole neighborhood could be gone.” Kodur adds“ When the fires go beyond and a whole neighborhood is on fire, or a factory, these hydrants aren’ t made for that.”
When a hydrant fails, it can become the lead story on the local news station or even receive national coverage. One story in the New York Times warned,‘ Wildfires are Revealing the Limits of Our Hydrant Systems’. In 2024, West Virginia’ s WCHS News spoke to West Virginian resident Jeffrey Harris, who watched a historic home on his street burn to the ground as firefighters worked the scene without the ability to spray water from the nearby hydrant.“ You kind of feel secure knowing that there’ s a fire hydrant just two houses away from you. To find out that it’ s not working is just kind of a gut punch,” Harris told the news team.
Stories like this sparked an investigation from the West Virginia Public Service Commission. Prior to its work, there was no standard authority in West Virginia for the inspecting of fire hydrants. WHCS reported that the report“ found that ageing fire hydrants in West Virginia aren’ t being tested or replaced quick enough.”
Are fire hydrant failures picking up? It seems to Zevotek that whenever there’ s a high-profile fire where a hydrant fails, he gets calls asking if this is a trend.“ It’ s a very effective system,” he says, noting that the number of fires successfully suppressed in part thanks to the availability of working hydrants often goes unheralded and that he has seen no data set to suggest that failures are becoming endemic. Even still, he acknowledges that with thousands of hydrants placed around the country,“ there’ s a potential that as these systems age, we might see more failure,” adding,“ The consequences when failure does happen can be huge.”
As chairman of the task force that conducted the state investigation of the fire hydrant stock in West Virginia, Jim
www. plumbingafrica. co. za @ plumbingonline @ plumbingonline @ PlumbingAfricaOnline March 2026 Volume 32 I Number 01