Under pressure: Water flow issues can cripple firefighters who rely on patchwork of unregulated hydrants

Two Fayette County homes 4 miles apart went up in flames in a 10-month period in 2021 and 2022 while firefighters reportedly struggled to draw water from nearby fire hydrants.

Residents of those homes believe low water pressure contributed to them losing their possessions and pets, according to federal civil rights lawsuits against Dunbar Township and North Fayette County Municipal Authority.

The water pressure dilemma is one that has been, and could continue to be, repeated throughout the region as firefighting in Southwestern Pennsylvania relies on a hydrant system that lacks what officials say is essential data needed to ensure public safety.

A TribLive investigation found:

• Testing of hydrant water flow throughout the region can be inconsistent and rare, leaving firefighters in some communities in the dark about how much water they can expect in an emergency.

• There are no state regulations that require water authorities to do flow testing or inspections of hydrants. Testing and inspections are left up to the patchwork of large and small entities that provide water for numerous communities in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

• It is unknown how many hydrants in the region do not meet the 500 gallons-per-minute minimum recommended by National Fire Protection Association guidelines.

“There are no state laws that say you have to provide a specific amount of water. I don’t know of any requirements for fire hydrants,” said John Waters, a consultant for the Pennsylvania State Fire Commission and the Pennsylvania Fire Emergency Services Institute.

Attorney Joel Sansone represents residents of those two Fayette households, who he said know firsthand how hydrant problems can result in tragedy. Their lawsuits claim concerns about low water pressure in the hydrants were brought up to local officials before the fires.

“These are hard things to forget when it wouldn’t take all that much to fix this,” Sansone said.

TribLive surveyed area public and private water authorities that documented inspections of thousands of hydrants in their systems on a regular basis. Inspections involve looking for signs of wear, leaks or corrosion; and verifying that caps, outlets and valves open and work properly. Workers then smear a lubricant on the threads of the caps before screwing them back on.

An inspection is different than a flow test, which calculates how many gallons of water per minute a hydrant is capable of producing.

Two-person teams from Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County inspect its 8,800 hydrants in a 16-month period. The authority provides water to more than 123,000 customers in five counties. Data shows that, since 2014, 517 hydrants, or 17% of the system, have been flow tested, according to records.

Pittsburgh Water, which serves a population of 500,000 and maintains about 7,500 hydrants, said 2,500 are inspected annually on a rotating basis. Data of inspections reviewed by TribLive conducted by the utility from 2020-24 included estimated gallons per minute that flowed from hydrants during flushing. Those results were not reflective of formalized flow tests, according to spokesperson Rebecca Zito. The authority conducted 968 flow tests since 2020, about 13% of the system. Results of those tests were not available.

Pennsylvania American Water, a private entity which has about 138,000 customers in Western Pennsylvania, operates approximately 6,900 hydrants in Pittsburgh’s southern and eastern suburbs. Company spokesperson Brent Robinson declined to disclose information about how many flow tests it conducts and results of those examinations. The company is facing a federal lawsuit in Luzerne County, where a property owner claims a fire hydrant malfunctioned during a 2022 blaze that destroyed his home.

Recommended standards

Pennsylvania, like other states, recommends water systems operate under standards set by the National Fire Protection Association, a private nonprofit organization founded in 1896 to eliminate death, injury, property and economic loss because of fire, electrical and related hazards.

Association standards last renewed in 2023 include guidance that suggests hydrants be flushed and tested for flow levels at least once every five years. The group recommends hydrants produce water flows of at least 500 gallons per minute.

Those recommendations also are part of the International Fire Code, which sets minimum safety standards and suggests rules for fire prevention and protection, mirroring goals set by the NFPA. Pennsylvania has not adopted the code requirements, Waters said.

“There’s no real enforceable legal requirement to provide a certain amount of water,” Waters said.

Robin Zevotek, an association engineer, said specific codes can be written into law by towns and boroughs.

“They (municipalities) can spell out how much water is available and the standards for firefighting. They usually don’t set a pressure or flows for a hydrant,” Zevotek said. “Fire departments may not have enforceable authority over who provides their water, so education is needed, and they could lobby to codify into law safety levels for flows and pressure.”

A bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate in 2022 would have required water providers to conduct routine inspections of a third of their hydrants annually and assess them every four years. Hydrant flows were not addressed in the legislation, and the bill was never considered by the state House.

“When it comes to fire safety, we should routinely test hydrants as it protects our communities and helps maintain reasonable homeowner insurance rates,” said Pennsylvania Senate Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Hempfield. Ward voted for the Senate bill that addressed water infrastructure and hydrants in 2022.

“I continue to support this legislative effort. However, responsible water authorities should not need legislation to address a commonsense issue,” she said.

Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County deputy manager Brian Hohman said the authority’s hydrants will provide water when needed — while acknowledging some fell below the NFPA’s recommended minimum gallons per minute — and that the authority shares inspection data with local firefighters and 911 operators.

The authority has amassed a system made up of small local water systems with lines that have been in place for decades, Hohman said during an interview with the Trib and MAWC leadership last month.

Of the flow tests conducted by MAWC on 517 hydrants over the last decade, 35 hydrants in the system fell below the minimum 500 gallons-per-minute standard. Hohman said the number of hydrants below the NFPA standard might be fewer based on skewed test results. He insisted that level of flow doesn’t mean the hydrants are insufficient to fight a fire.

The amount of water a hydrant can produce is based on a variety of factors, including the size of water lines feeding it, number of hydrants on the same line in use and elevation. MAWC does flow tests rarely, typically only by request of a local fire chief, developer, property owner, municipal leaders or the national firm that assesses insurance risks related to public water supplies, officials said.

MAWC officials insist there is no need to conduct flow tests on every hydrant. Hohman said they can assume that, unless major improvements are made in the system, the flow from a hydrant will not change. Thousands of hydrants in data provided to TribLive included no flow values, indicating they hadn’t been tested.

“If we’ve upgraded some lines, things like that, or done something with a tank or added a pump station, those would be significant changes,” Hohman said. “But most of the time, the basic characteristics of our system don’t change.

“All of our hydrants can provide water. A few might just not have the highest volume,” he said.

Zito said Pittsburgh Water conducts flow tests upon request from developers or insurance raters.

“We don’t do flow testing on an annual basis,” Zito said, noting that inspections and flushing provide a sufficient view of how hydrants function.

Hydrants near deadly fire

As an inferno consumed a home last year on Guy Street in Jeannette, firefighters struggled at first to find enough water to extinguish the raging blaze.

When attempts to tap into nearby hydrants didn’t produce enough water, Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye made the difficult decision to retreat in the early moments of searching the house.

“Everybody out of the fire building until we have water here,” Frye called out over the radio.

Tyler J. King, 27, and four of his children — Kyson, 7; Kinzleigh, 6; Keagan, 3; and Korbyn, 1 month — died in the March 2024 fire. Their mother and two other children escaped. A second home was destroyed and a fire truck damaged.

According to MAWC records, a hydrant at Second and Guy streets near the fire has been routinely inspected but never subjected to a flow test. Frye said in the immediate aftermath that firefighters couldn’t get enough water from it, which, along with pushing water up a hill to the scene, hampered their ability to extinguish the flames. Routine inspections of the hydrant found no issues, records show.

During the past decade, 14 of Jeannette’s 187 hydrants — about 7% — have been flow tested. Two of the 14 were found to have insufficient flows, one at 508 Patton Ave. and the other on Morningside Avenue.

The Patton Avenue hydrant, installed in 1972, was last flow tested in 2022 when 200 gallons per minute streamed out, well below the national standard of 500. It was last assessed Oct. 18, 2024, when inspectors reported only “let drain a while, slow.”

The Morningside Avenue hydrant, installed in 1976, was tested in 2015 with a recorded flow of 380 gallons per minute. It was most recently inspected in October, and no maintenance issues were found.

Frye, who runs Westmoreland County’s only paid fire department, said he has brought his concerns about the city’s hydrants to Jeannette officials and MAWC.

“We’re trying to put out fires in 2025 with infrastructure from 1888,” he said. “We have residential neighborhoods that have less than 200 gallons available.”

Frye in April asked Jeannette officials to consider enacting water flow testing requirements for hydrants in the city. Solicitor Tim Witt said this week municipal officials have limited control over what they can ask an outside entity to do, but discussions are ongoing.

City Manager Ethan Keedy said he thinks all hydrants should be flow tested to ensure they meet the minimum NFPA standards.

“They are responsible for those hydrants,” he said, referring to MAWC. “We pay our water bill. They need to be making sure they are properly maintained and managed throughout all the municipalities that they oversee.”

MAWC officials said they have no formal requests from Jeannette’s chief about infrastructure upgrades.

Century-old infrastructure

Meanwhile, infrastructure continues to age.

MAWC has at least 14 hydrants in its system that have been in place for more than a century, with two of the oldest in Mt. Pleasant Borough. One dates to 1900 and the other to 1907. According to inspection records, eight of the oldest hydrants are in McKeesport. MAWC bought that system in the mid-1980s.

More than 3,200 feet of pipe and eight hydrants were installed in McKeesport in 2019. Records show MAWC has flow data for 22 of the city’s 623 hydrants — 3.5% of them. The old infrastructure will continue to pose a challenge for firefighters statewide until upgrades are made, said McKeesport fire Chief Jeff Tomovcsik, who also runs a paid fire service.

“It’s been an uphill battle,” he said. “We have areas of the city we know have insufficient volume to fight fires. We know where those hydrants are. Our hydrants could absolutely be better.”

About 39% — 3,434 — of MAWC’s hydrants were installed after 2000, according to data reviewed by TribLive. Several fire chiefs contacted by the Trib said they have no issues getting water out of hydrants.

Firefighters in communities throughout the region say they typically have knowledge of the water and hydrant systems in their communities. They call in tanker trucks to bring water to a scene if there are concerns about a hydrant or if one isn’t close by.

Frye wants to know where problems might exist so he can have additional resources dispatched sooner, rather than after firefighters get on scene only to discover they cannot get what they need from a hydrant.

“Until our elected officials take it seriously and put pressure on the municipal authority for infrastructure investment, we’re not going to see any change,” Frye said.

Changes came to Plum’s water system a year ago. Concerns about the borough’s fire hydrants arose in August 2023 after a fatal house explosion and inferno in the Rustic Ridge neighborhood. Authorities found the hydrants could not provide enough water for a single, fully engulfed house fire in that neighborhood.

The Plum Borough Municipal Authority installed a new 1,600-foot water line last year to increase the capacity of the hydrants to 700 gallons per minute. A hydraulic model of the hydrant system estimated flow rates, which showed a few areas with 500 gallons per minute, but most above 1,000 gallons, authority officials previously said.

Some upgrades under way

Some communities are making upgrades to their water infrastructure.

A $300,000 grant will go toward replacing water lines and fire hydrants in Duquesne, where the water authority is run by the city. It has about 2,000 customers.

“We are aware of some hydrants that do need to be replaced,” city manager Doug Sample said.

In the next couple of months, the Municipal Authority of the City of New Kensington will begin work to replace 6-inch cast iron lines with 8-inch PVC pipe in the East Ken section of the city. About 20 hydrants are slated for replacement, said authority distribution superintendent Ed Saliba, who also serves as New Kensington’s fire chief.

Saliba’s goal is to flow test as many as 40 hydrants in the authority’s system over the next few years. That would provide a clear picture of the capacity of more than 1,200 hydrants in the system that are inspected twice annually, or up to four times a year in some spots. In addition to the city, the authority handles water for several communities, including Arnold, Lower Burrell and Upper Burrell.

“That’s going to take some time,” Saliba said. “It’s good for (the water authority) to know. It’s good for the fire department to know as well. My goal in the next few years is to get all of them done to see what they’re rated at.”

Challenge in rural areas

Hydrant locations and their proximity to fires in rural areas can be a factor in performance, according to local officials.

In East Huntingdon, fire Chief Brian Kite criticized a hydrant that lacked water pressure in a mobile home park after a fire destroyed a home there in October. That inoperable hydrant was the responsibility of the park owners, he said. Firefighters found a working hydrant about 1,500 feet from the blaze.

His crew ran into a similar gap in hydrant coverage during a fire last month. South Huntingdon firefighters contended with the nearest fire hydrant being a mile and a half away during a February 2023 blaze that destroyed a large home on Boy Scout Road, according to the fire chief.

New technology can help firefighters find the closest hydrants to emergencies. Bradenville fire Chief Mark Piantine said he knows where hydrants are, and aren’t, in rural Derry Township, but firefighters in his department can use a smartphone app to locate the two hydrants closest to a fire.

Water officials say the ultimate solution is infrastructure improvements, but finding the money isn’t easy. A project to replace every older water line serviced by the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County would cost billions of dollars, by conservative estimate.

It’s a cost that could be justified as a means to ensure firefighters have the water they need, experts said.

“They expect when they respond to the scene of a fire they should get all the water they want all the time,” Waters said.

As his two lawsuits work through the courts, Sansone encouraged residents who have concerns to speak up.

“There really does need to be regulation,” he said, “by someone more than local politicians subject to the local push and pull of politics.”

Rich Cholodofsky and Renatta Signorini are TribLive staff writers and can be reached at rcholodofsky@triblive.com and rsignorini@triblive.com.