A Donegal County Councillor has repeated the call for a dedicated service for checking fire hydrants after devastating fires in Newtowncunningham on Monday.
A thunder and lightning storm during Storm Isha caused major damage when lightning struck three homes in the Newtown area.
It’s reported that firefighters from Derry, who were first on the scene, struggled to find a fire hydrant to battle the blaze on the roof of one family home.
And in Letterkenny, just weeks before Christmas, firefighters responding to a blaze at a family home in Meadowbank found a fire hydrant blocked.
The issue of fire hydrant mapping and maintenance was raised with Donegal County Council last week by Councillors Gerry McMonagle and Jimmy Kavanagh.
The Councillors asked that an immediate inspection of all hydrants in the Letterkenny-Milford Municipal District take place to ensure that all are fit for purpose. They also sought clarity on which authority has the ultimate responsibility for the inspection and maintenance of local hydrants.
Cllr Kavanagh said that the recent fires in Newtowncunningham highlight the urgency of the issue.
He said: “The current system of checking, reporting faults and repairing and indeed identifying hydrants simply is not working, and I am convinced from speaking with public representatives that this is a problem not only in Donegal but right across the country.”
Cllr Kavanagh said the issue is not isolated to Donegal, and that the national approach to looking after hydrants, reporting faulty hydrants and maintaining them needs to be overhauled and streamlined.
Currently, Donegal County Fire Service carry out hydrant inspections as part of an ongoing programme. Any defects found in fire hydrants during hydrant inspections or at incidents are reported to Irish Water for remedial works.
Cllr Kavanagh said the system is not fit for purpose.
“The fire service cannot be expected to find and report faulty hydrants they simply don’t have the necessary numbers to do that,”he said.
“Equally Irish Water can take a long time to fix faulty hydrants even after they are reported, and there seems to be no system in place for checking hydrants other than random checks here and there at training drills.
“There needs to be a dedicated service for checking the hydrants and that nettle needs to be grasped by the Minister.”
He added, “The time lost in a fire situation because a hydrant isn’t working or is blocked and the time spent locating an alternative, could be the difference between life and death.”
