I have noticed the fire hydrants (which supply water to firefighters in the even of a fire) in my small town are a different color than in other nearby towns. At first, I thought it was done to identify which fire district was responsible for the hydrant — and that might be true in this area! Our local high school's "school colors" are blue-and-white, and our fire hydrants are painted blue. Another nearby town's high school has green-and-white as their "school colors," and their hydrants are painted green.
• PHOTO BY ME •
In some locations, the color of the hydrant — or at least the cap — is color-coded so that firefighters can quickly determine the amount of water flow that can be expected from a hydrant. Perhaps that is why the caps/tops are colored differently here. Water flow is usually measured in gallons-per-minute (GPM), at least in the US. According to the Moraga-Orinda Fire District in California, for example, the cap/top of the hydrants are marked this way:
• TOP COLORS, Moraga-Orinda (CA) Fire District[1] •
WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina, reports the following from an interview with a spokesperson from the municipal fire department:
Columbia uses a color code for each of its 14,000 hydrants. Blue is for hydrants pumping at least a thousand gallons a minute.
David Bagwell of the Columbia Fire Department says, "When he turns onto the street, the engine captain knows immediately what kind of water is in the neighborhood."
Bagwell showed WIS the other colors. Green means hydrants with 500 to 1000 gallons a minute. Yellow stands for 250 to 500. Orange and black striped is 250 gallons or below.
And solid orange signifies an out of service hydrant. There are 83 of those hydrants right now, less than one percent.
For more information about color coding of fire hydrants in various locations, plus a fun look at fire hydrants around the world, check out the Wikipedia article, referenced below!
😊SOURCES
1 FireHydrant.org: Hydrant Color Codes and Markings
2 WISTV.com: Fire hydrant color meaning changes based on area
2 Wikipedia: Fire Hydrant - Appearance
