Straws Letting Tolland Firefighters Take Big Steps Toward Safety

TOLLAND, CT — Tolland firefighters Monday showed just how to work in areas not serviced by pressurized hydrants.

A crew gathered with a truck at a pond near Station 340 and drafted (a fancy word for sucked) water out. A white pipe served as a "dry hydrant," one of a dozen located throughout town, where the TFD has no fire hydrants.

A dry hydrant is a pipe that is installed into a non pressurized water source. The "straws" allow a fire pump to attach to each other to vacuum or suck water out of a static water source like a pond, lake, river, portable water tank, or underground storage tank," fire officials said.

"You will see some of these dry hydrants across town — Crandall Pond, for example — that have a standard hydrant located at a pond. These hydrants are also dry hydrants that require a fire pump to draft from," fire officials said.