By Roger Amsden
The Union Leader Correspondent
GILMANTON, N.H. — Fire protection in this largely rural community received a boost last week as a team of call firefighters installed a half dozen dry hydrants in ponds and lakes.
That brings the number of dry hydrants in key locations around the town to around 30, according to Capt. Dana Middleton, who said the town has no pressurized hydrants and has to rely on dry hydrants for refilling tanker trucks when fighting fires.
Dry hydrants are a non-pressurized pipe system permanently installed in existing lakes, ponds and streams which provide a suction supply of water to fire department tank trucks.
“It’s just like a straw that we use to pull the water up with,” said firefighter Jim Beaudin.
Most of the work was done by the department’s call firefighters, who decided to volunteer their time in order to stretch available funds for the project so that as many dry hydrants as possible could be installed.
The department, headed by Fire Chief K.G. Lockwood, has only four full-time firefighters. Their work is supplemented by 42 volunteers and six live-in fire students from NH Community College in Laconia.
Capt. Brian Boyajian, who was manning the rented backhoe as the last of the six dry hydrants was installed in Sawyer Lake on Friday, said the others had been installed earlier in the week at Shellcamp Lake, Rocky Pond, the Zimmermann Pond on Middle Route and at the Dawson Farm on Stage Road.
“The town voted the money at town meeting and we decided to do it in house so we could get more done,” said Boyajian.
“Construction is the easy part. Getting the permits from the state to do the work was the hardest part of the project,” he said.
Once the permits were in hand, firefighters got together to organize last week’s work, which benefited from the good weather during most of the week.
At Sawyer Lake a 10-inch diameter pipe, 120 feet long with a right-angle attached upright section, was assembled on shore and then pulled out into the lake, where one end rested in a small boat. The pipe was then lowered into the trench that had been dug earlier and carried the length of the trench by a team of firefighters.
Boyajian said Woolcott Paving donated dump trucks and hauling for the project.
He said the new hydrants will reduce the amount of time trucks have to travel for fill-ups and enable them to return more quickly to the fire and maintain an uninterrupted water source at the scene.
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