California residents, firefighters use home fire pumps to protect against wildfires
San Diego resident Jerry Tucker was haunted by images of destruction caused by the California firestorm of 2003. "I saw so many pictures of houses burnt down, with full swimming pools of available water right next to them," he says. The images started him thinking: Could a specially designed pump allow homeowners to use their pool water to protect their property?
It wasn't long before Tucker found Dave Shields, a retired Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighter who had developed such a pump. Tucker and Shields collaborated to market and sell the pumps to residents living on the wildland/urban interface (WUI). "It's a self-primed, gasoline-powered pump available in varying horsepower (2.5 hp to 23 hp)," says Tucker. Set on a heavy-duty, portable cart, much like a handtruck, the pumps feature a suction hose and 50 feet of 1 ½" standard fire hose; they can draft from pools, ponds and even hot tubs. The advantage: Ordinary garden hose delivers 5 gpm; the home fire pump delivers 300 gpm. That added volume makes a big difference for residents and firefighters.
"The pump is designed to assist the fire department," says Tucker. "We don't recommend that residents fight fires. The pump is there to apply water to the area and to structures before the fire arrives, as opposed to being used in a direct attack on a fire." The pumps can further assist the fire department when hydrants are hard to reach or run dry, as they did during the Cedar Fire of 2003. "The average fire truck holds about 500 gallons of water, but the average pool has about 25,000 gallons. So a pool can be worth 50 fire trucks," says Tucker. Firefighters can even use the pumps to refill their trucks from a swimming pool-something that's not possible with standard equipment on a fire truck.
At $1,100-$1,950 for the complete system, the fire pumps are not cheap, but many California WUI residents consider them a worthwhile investment. And the pumps are catching on with fire departments as well as individuals. Thomas Finn, director and secretary of the Sleepy Hollow (Calif.) Fire Protection District (SHFPD), is in charge of purchasing fire protection for an unincorporated area that includes 900 homes-at an average worth of $2 million-particularly vulnerable to wildfire. "We're uniquely situated in a box canyon-one road in, one road out, surrounded by open space on three sides," says Finn. After testing one of the pumps, the SHFPD purchased eight pumps with the intention of placing them at strategic houses throughout the canyon. The public response was so positive that the district eventually purchased 22 pumps. "The houses that the pumps are stationed at are the houses closest to the open space," says Finn. "If we can stop the fire there, we can save that house plus all the neighboring houses."
Although the SHFPD held a training session for local residents, Finn stresses that the district's intention is not for the homeowners to use the pumps themselves, but rather, that firefighters will use the pumps to supplement water carried on the fire truck, or when oncoming fire forces firefighters to disconnect from a hydrant. "We kept stressing, 'Leave these pumps to the professionals,'" Finn says. "Our residents understand that they should only handle the pumps if a firefighter gives them the go-ahead or as an absolute last resort. We don't ever envision unsupervised use of the pumps."
For now, the home fire pumps are providing peace of mind to many WUI residents in California, and Tucker hopes their popularity will continue to spread. "There's a lot of property that can be saved if people are willing to step up and help protect their homes," he says.
