Greenwich Fire leads to discussion of extending water line

[Geppetto 31]

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local...0,6089579.story

A main event Raging fire escalates call for water line extension

By Neil Vigdor

Staff Writer

July 28, 2007

When flames engulfed a 19th-century barn on northwest King Street recently, officials said precious time was wasted while firefighters stretched a hose to the nearest water source, which was a pond nearly half a mile away.

It took more than 2,000 feet of hose and three trucks to tie into the closest "dry" hydrant, which in this case was connected to a pond at Tamarack Country Club.

Meanwhile, another group of firefighters battling the same blaze was forced to drive more than a mile to get to a water main where they could refill their tanker trucks, which, like dry hydrants, are used when there isn't a hydrant connected to municipal water nearby.

It wasn't the most efficient way of doing the job, according to Assistant Fire Chief Peter Siecienski.

"That is less than an ideal situation," Siecienski said, noting that the delays tapping into the water supply don't even include the initial response times to fire calls.

Siecienski, who is taking over as chief on Aug. 1, is one of several public safety officials calling for the existing water line beneath King Street to be extended to serve northwest areas of town.

"Any extension of that main cuts down the (response) time and improves the water supply to that area," Siecienski said.

The project would extend an existing water main beneath King Street about eight-tenths of a mile north of its current terminus at Lincoln Avenue and bring service to a number of large properties along the busy northwest corridor, including two school campuses, the town golf course and a new fire station planned for the neighborhood. The property owners who would benefit from the extension would share the cost, which initial estimates put at $4 million.

Had it already been installed, the water main extension would have helped prevent the spread of the fire from the barn at the 1415 King St. property to a nearby guest house, emergency management operations coordinator and former Fire Chief Daniel Warzoha said.

"It wouldn't have saved the barn, but it could have protected the guest house," Warzoha said. "It certainly would have helped, no question about it."

Fire officials are still determining the cause of the blaze, which burned so intensely that the heat from it set the guest house, 25 feet away, on fire. Firefighters were able to keep that fire to the exterior of the house, and only the siding and roof were damaged.

A water main extension would guarantee adequate water pressure and volume for fighting fires, Warzoha said. Using dry hydrants such as the one at Tamarack Country Club was not the best practice, he said.

"The best way to describe it is they're putting a straw in a glass of water and they're sucking it out," Warzoha said, adding that it takes fewer firefighters to set up a connection to a regular hydrant than a dry hydrant.

Though this year's town budget has $100,000 in it for the design of the water main extension, the project isn't a sure thing. In addition to requiring coordination with Aquarion Water Co., which provides the town's municipal water, and the appropriations called for in the town's capital plan actually to come through.

In 2008-09, the town capital plan calls for an additional $1 million to be appropriated for the town's share of the project and for $60,000 to be earmarked for the design of the new fire station. The town would spend another $2 million in 2009-10 on the actual construction of the firehouse. The figure does not include staffing or equipment costs for the new station.

The project has the backing of First Selectman Jim Lash, who said the recent fire was a good illustration of the need for the water line extension.

"Actually, we were lucky with that fire in the sense that the ground wasn't dry," Lash said. "Some of those embers were going up into the air and onto other people's properties. It would have been a lot better if we had a water line there."

Fire officials said they aren't the only ones who recognize the problem with the lack of water.

Siecienski said the rating used by insurance companies for determining fire risk and premium rates in the northwest part of town was more than double that of areas with water mains.

Despite that, some neighborhood leaders are concerned that extending the water main will promote further development on King Street. They said the neighborhood has several tracts of vacant land that could be targeted for intense development if the extension is built, including 50 acres next to Harvest Time Assembly of God on King Street.

"Extending the water main up King Street might, and might is in capital letters, might have made things better in that fire situation," said Joan Caldwell, chairman of the Representative Town Meeting District 10/Northwest delegation. "But we don't know. We do know that the existence of the (new) fire house is important and that the existence of the dry hydrants is important. That's where we should be focusing our efforts, on the certainties and not the mights."

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