“My town has the additional advantage of the water coming from 1,000 feet up a mountain. It’s stored in surge tanks so that we don’t need pumps to fight fire.”
My town is similar having 12 million gallons of water in tanks all elevated (natural water pressure) and mostly spring/creek/river fed.
No one knows when a fire will break out but when it does your will need water...
During the summer months of (I think) ‘05 & ‘06 Downtown Bozeman, MT was a mess as it was removing the 100+ year old terracotta pipes that were supplying water to this major section of town. Main Street was gravel and sidewalks were closed or you had to walk on 4 x 8 sheets of plywood. The Bozeman City Water Department had a good plan to upgrade the out of date water delivery system.
Then:
“Shortly after 8:00 am on March 5, 2009, a natural gas explosion rocked downtown Bozeman....” (see link at end of post)
Multiple buildings were gone - it was snowing that morning and though I live four miles from the blast I thought a car had run into our house. Big BOOM!
Fire crews were dispatched to put out the fire but the gas line — the main gas line — had no valve! It took three days to install a valve and multiple fire trucks pumped water on the fire for day after day. If the terracotta pipes had not been replaced the pumps ‘sucking’ water out of the old water mains would have collapsed them.
Overall 10.5 million gallons of water were used on the fire and there was only one fatality.
The City of Bozeman, it’s Fire and Water Departments did their good prep and much property was spared which would have caught fire and burned without the new pipes...
This is how a city is supposed to work.
https://bozemanmagazine.com/articles/2021/03/01/110097-the-block-that-was-rocked
Re Bozeman:
Excellent alternate path. It IS possible with competence and common sense,
ThankQ.