The red dots are the locations of fire hydrants and the circles surrounding
them have a 500 foot radius. Everything within a circle is within
500 feet of a fire hydrant. All homes within Westhaven are within
750 feet, a workable distance for any fire department.
The 'Web
encourages all residents to memorize the locations of hydrants nearest
your home. One weakness of the Westhaven Hydrant Grid is that hydrants
are irregularly placed. This is because the Westhaven Water System
was laid out with efficiency in mind and the water mains do not always
follow the streets. The result is that there is no regular spacing
of hydrants or method of predicting where one might be found.
The biggest
risk from fire in Westhaven is that a fire department could waste valuable
time searching for a hydrant in the very important first minutes of arrival
and not fighting the fire. The best defense against this is that
all residents would know the location of hydrants near their home and be
able to direct fire fighters immediately to the closest hydrant.
- JRS -
