[hyteckit]

Here in Los Angeles, 90% of the fire hydrants are yellow.

Some red, some green, some blue, and some orange.

[iranfromthezoo]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

City administrators seldom understand things like "having all the fire trucks the same brand and model means fewer spare parts to stock and less extra training for maintenance folks" and so on. And Chiefs like to keep their jobs, so they do what "the boss" wants. Unless they're very, very good, very well connected, or have something on the administrators, they HAVE to do this. Whether it looks like it or not, Fire Chief is as political a position as Mayor.

I assume we are the exception to the rule. Every city in the area stays with the same brand truck. Us and a neighboring city use Pierce while the others use E-One exclusively. Of course we don't have fire chief right now but that isn't a bad thing either. A cop has always been a fire chief for our city...go figure.

[Dork.]

Some of our fire hydrants have sticks poking up vertically from them so that if they are covered in snow they can still be found....

[ApertureValue]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Some of our fire hydrants have sticks poking up vertically from them so that if they are covered in snow they can still be found....

When I went to boot camp at Great Lakes, Ill., that was the first time I'd seen hydrants with those flags on them.

[andi*pandi]

it's also so they don't get hit by snowplows.

Kid and I did a survey this morning, and out of 10 fire hydrants we saw on the way to camp, all but one was yellow with a black top. The oddball was red, and we wondered if the homeowners had painted it to match the house. All of them had various different pokey bits on top or sides, and one had a block with hazard markings on the edge, so we figured that one was broken.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by iranfromthezoo 

I assume we are the exception to the rule. Every city in the area stays with the same brand truck. Us and a neighboring city use Pierce while the others use E-One exclusively. Of course we don't have fire chief right now but that isn't a bad thing either. A cop has always been a fire chief for our city...go figure.

Enough of a public fuss, or enough of a tax surplus (or both) can force a city to do the right thing. Or the people running the city may have (accidentally, of course) just decided to to the right thing. Probably in their first term in office-won't happen again.

Are you still around Oxford, or am I miss-remembering? I'd be interested to know what city you work for and what the "other city" is.

I never picked up much on modern fire truck brands until I worked with the air base firefighters back around '99-'00, and then they had Air Force-selected vehicles, mostly P-19s. My grandfather worked for the Olds branch that built fire trucks, and there are two bands that I started listening to because they named themselves after two of those fire trucks: Diamond Rio (only partially named after a fire truck) and REO Speedwagon. The "REO" stands for "Ransom E. Olds," or "Mr. Olds" to just about everyone...

[Laminar]

Fire trucks at Chicago O'Hare are yellow/green.

[ApertureValue]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Fire trucks at Chicago O'Hare are yellow/green.

Most of the crash trucks I've ever seen were either some hue of yellow or yellow-orange. We even bought one for our department, because one of our stations was close to the airport and we got a few ISO points for having it. Now, did it run and operate properly? Well, no. But, it sat in the station and was available for the ISO evaluators to look at when they made their visit.

^^^ By the way, I noticed that this emoticon is EXACTLY the color of our trucks here. Blah.

[Aeolius]

I live in a town with a population of roughly 7,000. No city water. No city sewer. No fire hydrants. If my house was on fire, they'd have to drain my pool.

[ApertureValue]

Originally Posted by Aeolius 

I live in a town with a population of roughly 7,000. No city water. No city sewer. No fire hydrants. If my house was on fire, they'd have to drain my pool.

Aaaah, takes me back to my volunteer days out in the county. Such memories of drafting all the damned time.

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by richwig83 

Ours are subterranean.. so they are probably just metal colour!

They have yellow signs though.

Fire hydrant:


Sign:


Amorya