Fire service trivia

[EastKyFF]

OK, let's play "stump the experts (and everybody else)"--

Why are hydrants sometimes referred to as fire plugs ?

Winner gets to do something special with Drew Carey. If nobody gets it, answer goes up tomorrow AM.

Post a question if you got one!

[StayBack500FT]

Ummmmmmmmm.........Errrrrrrrr. ......How about Cindy Crawford????? Drew Carey??? No thanks.


Your answer is as follows: Wooden plugs were strategically placed in early water lines. These plugs could be removed allowing access to the water line. Thus............Fireplug!

[FiRsqDvr45]

When water mains were wooden companies would pull up to the fire scene, dig down to the pipe and chop a hole into it allowing the hole to fill with water so they could draft from it. When finished some poor sap went into the hole and put a wooden plug into the hole and then they would bury the site but leave a marker so the next time a fire struck the area they could dig down in the same spot, remove the "plug" and pump away.(below grade? confined space?OSHA be damned!)

[apatrol]

I am not big on Drew but his sidekick Kate....She would be welcome anytime..

[R1SAlum]

How about someone naming some of the tools we use that the coal mining industry used before the fire service did?

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

Would one of them be SCBA?

[CAPN22]

Fire Companies only got paid if they were the ones that put out the fire. Rival Companies would send a large member ahead of the team to quickly secure the plug. Often these would end up in fist brawls between the "Rapid Response" members. After enough beatings these members became "Plug Ugly". (as told to me by an old timer)

[E229Lt]

I'll say, most of the walks were brick or cobblestone but a wooden "plug" would be placed at a spot where water could be drafted.

[R1SAlum]

Mikey
Yeah, their canisters were around before as well as some metering devices. I wonder if they had the old Porta-Powers before us.

[distchief60b]

I believe the story of the holes in the wooden lines was a correct one.

[E229Lt]

Rival Companies would send a large member ahead of the team to quickly secure the plug. Often these would end up in fist brawls between the "Rapid Response" members. After enough beatings these members became "Plug Ugly".

These members were also known as "Plug Thugs"

[firemangeorge]

Here in Cincy, it was common for companies to carry a beer barrel(empty) on the apparatus to cover the hydrant until a "freindly" pumper arrived. Usually carried on hose tenders and fuel wagons which could move faster than the bulky engines. The hydrants of course replaced the plugs.
Plugging and marking a used opening in the main was indeed the correct answer