North Bloomfield residents Randall Strossen and his wife Elizabeth Hammond recently installed a 3,000-gallon fire tank on their property. Then Randall told his neighbors about the idea. “I wrote about a dozen neighbors and explained to them that we were going to do this. I said, you know, if anybody else has a tank or pool or pond or something that they could use for this dry hydrant idea, let’s do it.” One of his neighbors responded, “I’d like to bring my 32,000-gallon pool into the mix.” Now Strosser wants to spread the concept throughout the county.

“A dry hydrant can be in the form of a water tank, pond, swimming pool, etc. In our area, anything we can have on hand is a big plus,” Strosser said during our interview.

The dry hydrant concept uses existing water storage and is relatively inexpensive to install. The 3,000-gallon tank cost about $7,000 to purchase and install, and that’s about the same cost as installing the dry hydrant for the 32,000-gallon pool, Strosser said.

“An incredible bargain,” Strossen said. “If you build a storage tank, it’s over $2 a gallon. If you build a dry hydrant that draws water from an existing water source, you’re so much cheaper than a dollar it’s unbelievable. So this is really the way to go. People can tap into swimming pools or ponds. Of course, there’s some work involved. There are regulations and some construction, but it’s all very doable.”

Strossen is a passionate advocate for fire protection. He is active in the Harmony FireWise community and believes in the importance of vegetation control. “But that’s not the only solution to our fire threat in Nevada County. We’ve invested a lot in vegetation control. We also need to look at other things that are important to fire suppression and prevention,” he told us during our interview. He recalled a structure fire in the area in January 2017 that required fire trucks to backtrack to Coyote Street to refill their water supplies. “If that had been in the summer,” he shuddered. “That’s the kind of situation we can avoid. Now we have water in this area, and there are so many other places where the same thing could happen.”

After the installation was complete, Nevada County Consolidated Fire Chief Patrick Mason added both Strossen’s tank and the pool’s location to the fire department’s maps and GPS devices. Firefighters need to be able to locate water sources equipped with compatible hardware during emergencies, often at night or during heavy smoke. Firefighters outside the area need access to the same information when assisting local resources.

The help of the fire marshal was invaluable, Strossen stressed. “He was so helpful and there are detailed blueprints for dry hydrants. You also have to consider the fire engines or the water trucks, you need road access and space to turn around.” He suggests anyone interested contact their local fire department and he is happy to share his findings with them. “My bottom line is that it’s great that we did this, but I really hope that this example inspires other people to do the same. Because we now have a model that can be replicated, that can be replicated across the country. It’s very quick and very cost-effective. And of course it would be nice if we had NID hydrants everywhere, but that’s just not realistic. These dry hydrants give our firefighters a tool that they’ve never had before.”

Harmony FireWise Community

About 50 homes are part of the Harmony FireWise Community. Their concern was the lack of fire hydrants along N. Bloomfield Road. The last NID hydrant toward the river is near Bernard Place, and another hydrant is at the top of Cedar View Road, next to the NID tanks, according to Terry Hastings of the Harmony Firewise Community.

“Thanks to the persistence and hard work of Randall and Josh, firefighters now have an additional source of water to quickly contain fires. The project benefits our neighborhood and the Firewise community, but also the residential areas further out to the north of Bloomfield. Many private citizens and some Firewise communities in Nevada County have installed emergency water tanks, but they hold less water and are more expensive to install. We believe this could be a model for other neighborhoods/Firewise communities in Nevada County,” Hastings said.