Writer: Katy Hall, (409) 862-3309 (graphic available upon request)
Contact: Mark Stanford, (409) 639-8100
COLLEGE STATION -- Margaret isn't afraid to fall asleep at night anymore.
There was a time when the fear of a raging wildland fire kept this aging widow awake. Her rural home was surrounded by dense grasslands that a cigarette from a careless motorist easily could have ignited.
But Margaret (not her real name) found security in a dry fire hydrant installed on her property, says Joe LaBarbera of the federal Resource and Development Area headquartered in Bryan.
A dry hydrant is basically a non-pressurized pipe installed at a pond or lake that gives firefighters a way to replenish their water supplies -- a critical need in battling fires in pastures and structures.
The hydrant on Margaret's property is just one of nearly 1,000 such devices installed throughout the state as a result of the ongoing cooperative effort between LaBarbera and the Texas Forest Service.
But many more are needed. Wildfires are a real fear of rural residents across the state, and dry hydrants offer real security, he says. LaBarbera, who works with rural communities in 10 counties on economic development efforts, brought the idea to Texas from Alabama in 1991. Within a year he had gained the support of the state forest service, which is charged with rural firefighting.
The Texas Forest Service helps fund dry hydrants through its Rural Community Fire Protection cost-share program. The program, open to fire departments in communities of less than 10,000 people, pays a percentage of the cost of specific equipment, such as trucks and slip- on pumps, says Mark Stanford, head of the Rural Fire Defense Section of the state forest service's Forest Fire Control Department in Lufkin.
When a dry hydrant request is approved, the program pays for the hydrant parts, about $250, and the fire department agrees to cover the cost of installation, Stanford says.
With the forest service as a partner, the project took off "like wildfire," LaBarbera says.
Within three years, the Texas Forest Service funded more than 400 dry hydrants. And in late 1994, the project got a boost from the Governor's Energy Office in the form of a one-time $200,000 grant, Stanford says.
The grant funds came from the federal oil overcharge account -- money penalized oil companies paid the government for price gouging at the gas pumps in the 1970s. Since the money can't be refunded directly to consumers, it was divided among the states. In Texas the funds are administered by the Governor's State Energy Conservation Program to fund projects that help conserve fuel.
To qualify for the grant, LaBarbera showed that dry hydrants save fuel in two ways:
First, access to water close to a fire scene means less travel time and less fuel for fire trucks. Secondly, the use of pond or lake water instead of treated water is less costly.
"It costs money to purify water," LaBarbera says. "We don't need to be fighting fires with drinking water."
LaBarbera's argument worked, and the grant was awarded in the summer of 1994. The Texas Forest Service handled the applications and by autumn nine counties were approved for the cost-share funding. The grant pays for the dry hydrant, and the county government pays for installation. Because the initial requests didn't use all the grant money, a number of individual dry hydrant requests also are being funded, Stanford says.
To date, the grant has funded nearly 500 dry hydrant requests bringing the total number of hydrants close to 1,000 in about 80 counties. The grant funds are helping Rusk County become the first to plan for countywide coverage, which means one dry hydrant every three square miles, Stanford says.
Dry hydrants have been around for years, but they only recently caught on, he says.
"It really goes hand-in-hand with the increase in the number of rural fire departments in the last decade," Stanford says. As the rural population grows, so does interest in improving rural fire protection, he says.
"It's a real common-sense idea that doesn't cost a lot of money," Stanford says of dry hydrants. "Rural residents see the value in that."
And so does the Texas Forest Service. It has relaxed its definition of a dry hydrant to accommodate residents across the state.
For example, in the Panhandle where there isn't much surface water, a dry hydrant could be a device that enables firefighters to access water through irrigation wells. And in arid West Texas the idea was adapted to fit rock stock tanks, he says.
"Our goal is to get available water for rural fire departments," Stanford says, noting the state forest service won't ignore any workable idea that helps reach that goal. "Who's going to get hung up on definitions?"
Stanford said that rural residents interested in information about dry hydrants can find out more at the nearest local forest service office.