February 14, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            In both instances, several fire departments responded and had to set up a transport system to haul water from Wake Forest fire hydrants.

            The fire on Welcome Drive was well advanced by the time the fire departments were notified and arrived. Fire trucks were on the scene earlier for the Mica Mine fire but it was also advanced.

            Firemen “did the best they could do under the given circumstances,” Stony Hill Fire Chief A.C. Rich said, “but it was another big fire that highlighted water supply is a premium.” Stony Hill was the lead department at the Mica Mine fire because their station is closer than Wake Forest’s.

            Once at the fire scene, the important factor is to get as much water on the fire as fast as possible, and one way to do that is to have large-capacity pumper tankers for rural areas.

            Wake Forest Fire Chief Jerry Swift will soon ask Wake County to purchase a large capacity pumper tanker – one carrying 3,000 gallons of water – and Rich plans to request one also.

            “We will use that to supplement the first-arriving engine company,” Swift said. The water in the large pumper tanker will provide adequate water until the firemen can get the water shuttle established at rural fires.

            Wake Forest Fire Department has four pumper tankers between its two stations, each of them carrying 1,000 gallons.

            Forty or fifty years ago, both Swift and Rich said, houses were 900 square feet with some ranch houses going up to 1,200. Today’s homes are 2,500 square feet up to 10,000.

            “With those houses being larger, it takes a lot more water and more manpower in those larger structures,” Swift said.

            If there is a reported structure fire of any size, Rich said, five departments respond. “We try to overcome the lack of a big tanker with several thousand-gallon tankers.”

            West of Wake Forest and north of Falls Lake, large-lot, large-house subdivisions are sprouting daily. But the area, which is a protected watershed, does not have an overall water system.

            In the past five years, from January of 2002 through December of 2006, Wake County Inspections Department has issued permits for 1,134 single-family homes, seven apartment buildings, 108 mobile homes and 18 modular homes in the Wake Forest and New Light townships west of the Wake Forest town limits.      

            Wake Forest’s rural fire district goes to the Camp Kanata Road; Stony Hill covers most of New Light Township from Camp Kanata Road west to the Durham County line from its stations on Stony Hill Road just off N.C. 98 and at the intersection of New Light Road and Purnell Road.

            “One of our needs is definitely water supply,” Rich said.

            Keith Lankford with the Wake County Planning Department said they looked at the need for water for fire fighting when they were put together the new Unified Development Ordinance about a year ago. One suggestion was to require subdivisions to have a pond for water supply, but, Lankford said, there were questions such as who would maintain a lane to the pond and would the hoses suck up debris and silt, ruining the fire equipment. “We just couldn’t get a consensus” from the planning department, the fire marshal’s office, environmental groups and homeowners. “It kind of got tabled.”

            Rich has what he calls a “boilerplate” reply when the county planning department sends him the plans for another subdivision in his fire district: the streets need to be wider, the cul-de-sacs need a greater turning radius and “when are we going to get a county water system?”

            Rich said there are some private water systems with hydrants.

            Hasentree, the 600-lot, very pricy golf-and-amenities subdivision being built on N.C. 98 very near the fire station, will have waterlines and hydrants, but “we kind of had to beg them to put hydrants in.”

            There are several other private water systems being installed in the area, using water tanks or pumps or a combination to push the water to individual homes through underground pipes.

            But, Rich said, “It’s not enough and the flow capacity of the water main is not as adequate as the municipal systems. The systems are being put in so people can have drinking water.

            “When it comes to a fire department,” Rich said, “we need a large pipe that can supply five hundred gallons per minute as a minimum. Sometimes we can’t achieve that because of the size of the water main.”

            One solution for the water-supply problem, Rich said, is for the county to require developers to install hydrants on the water lines in rural subdivisions.

            Stony Hill also has identified a number of ponds and points from which it can draw water when no water lines are available. “We call it drafting in rural areas,” Rich said.

            He preaches fire prevention and early detection. “Adding a sprinkler system [in a house] is probably one of the best things you can do.” Add to that fire alarms and good housekeeping. “Those three are the absolute best things you can do.”

            The fires they will not be able to fight well will be in a 4,000-square-foot house set a quarter-mile from the road down a narrow path. “We’ve had one or two of those nightmares. Those are scary ones because the house burns and there is absolutely nothing you can do,” Rich said.

            The Stony Hill Fire Department has 31 volunteers and 30 paid staff. Rich is always asking for more paid staff from the county, which funds the department with a 10-cent fire tax on property. Of the 10, 8.5 cents is for department operations and 1.5 cents is retained by the county for capital expenditures.

            “There are two twenty-four-hour staff people every day” at the two stations, Rich said. “During weekdays we have part-time staff to supplement. At night we have volunteers that staff our stations.

            “It’s almost as if we’re behind the eight-ball,” he said. “The growth is so dramatic, we’re constantly struggling to keep up” and the county faces pressure to build more schools, fund fire departments better and provide social services.