At a certain point, the number of fire incidents at LaJoie’s needs to be termed chronic. And if they are chronic, then something is awry with their operation. Last night, yet another fire flared at LaJoie’s. The Hour reports details on Sunday’s early morning fire:
Fire Marshal Glenn Iannaccone, of the Norwalk Fire Department, said the fire is believed to have started when hot metal from recently scrapped vehicles ignited “fluff.” That’s the non-metallic material in motor vehicles such as foam and upholstery. The pile of scrap metal was estimated to be about 20 feet high and about 100 feet in circumference.
Firefighter’s were hampered initially in fighting the fire because a fire hydrant on Meadow Street wasn’t working. Fire officials said Sunday both of the fire hydrants on Meadow Street weren’t working, but John Hiscock, general manager of South Norwalk Electric and Water Company said Monday that only one wasn’t working.
He said company workers worked on the hydrant Monday to discover why it wasn’t working. The company operates the water system for South Norwalk, West Norwalk and Rowayton, as well as for parts of Silvermine, East Norwalk and southwest Wilton. It has about 9,000 customers and hundreds of fire hydrants, although he said he didn’t know exactly how many the company has.
The damage could have occurred due to someone inappropriately tampering with it or due or could simply be a mechanical problem, he said.
“It’s a mechanical device; it’s got pins and couplings that tie the various components together,” said Hiscock.
Purposely damaging a fire hydrant is hard to accomplish, said Hiscock.
“They are not easy to vandalize. You need to know what you are doing.”
The company annually tests one third of its hydrants, and the hydrant, which didn’t work on Sunday, had been tested in 2006 and there were no problems found with it, he said.
“This hydrant was flowed in the spring of 2006 and it showed no damage at that time,” he said.
Do we live in Mayberry or what? How is it that the general manager of the company charged with maintaining fire hydrants doesn’t know the exact number of hydrants his company is responsible for the day after two fire hydrants were reported not working? You would think that Monday morning would have started with, get me the files on fire hydrant maintenance. But alas, SNEW, still seems to operate in the 19th century, and likely has records stored in huge ledger books with spidery hand writing.
Yet we learned that contrary to national fire safety recommendations, the last time these two fire hydrants were inspected was in the spring of 2006, over 2 years ago. And that only 1/3 of the hydrants, of an indeterminate number, get inspected annually. No answer on whether the Norwalk Fire Department pays SNEW for maintaining the hydrants.
source: The Hour, Sunday’s fire at scrapyard no threat to public health, By FRANK MacEACHERN, August 26, 2008
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