Fire protection from municipal water: Too easily taken for granted
August 17, 2011

The images we usually use to promote the work of municipal water services are generally those of the child splashing in a fountain or a clear glass of water. There's nothing wrong with those images, and they tend to strike close to home: The value of safe drinking water is enormous, and especially when we see just how great a difference safe drinking water makes to the lives of people living in developing countries. But it's also possible to forget (much too easily) that drinking-water systems also provide critical support to fire departments. It wasn't all that long ago that cities burned regularly because they weren't protected by municipal water systems that could be tapped for firefighting. One history site says that the downtown area in Homer, Nebraska, went up in flames five times between 1903 and 1913. Imagine: Just a century ago, American towns went unprotected against fire because they hadn't yet developed the municipal water infrastructure required to offer fire protection.

Related products: We sell everything from the pumps that fill municipal water systems and water towers to the flowmeters that measure what passes through those lines. We can help keep water fresh in the towers with aeration systems, and we can measure for the additives like chlorine and fluoride that keep those systems safe and useful.

August 2011
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last revised August 2011