LOS ANGELES : Outfitting Fire Trucks to Drain Home Pools Urged

Los Angeles’ assistant fire marshal has proposed that all fire trucks be equipped with special pumps to drain swimming pools for fighting fires in brush areas and after earthquakes. “We lost our water supply during the Northridge earthquake,” Assistant Chief Dal Howard told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee Monday.

“The ability to have (pumps) anywhere in the city to fight just a single-family residence fire down in the flatlands is a very important issue for us,” he said.

The idea grew out of a proposal after the 1993 Malibu firestorm to require owners of new pools to equip them with special piping that would enable firefighters to pump the water out. But officials threw the original plan out, partly because firefighters still would not be able to make full use of about 50,000 existing pools in the city. The requirement would have cost each owner $2,500 to $10,000.

Councilman Marvin Braude, the panel’s chairman, welcomed the latest proposal and said he will ask the council to consider funding it, either with a new appropriation or a surcharge.

“The idea is brilliant and appropriate,” Braude said. “We’ll give the council something to think about.”

The pumps would boost a fire company’s capability markedly because each truck holds only 400 to 500 gallons of water, while pools hold 10,000 to 20,000 gallons.

According to Howard, each pump costs about $2,000, and fitting 220 trucks would cost $440,000 over two years. The Fire Department now has only about four or five of those pumps.