PITTSVILLE, WI (WSAU-WAOW) – The Pittsville Fire Department is joining seven other area departments to help them do their jobs faster. They’re using color-coded house numbers to tell them how far back a home is from the road.
For years fire departments in rural communities have struggled getting to homes with long driveways. In some cases their hoses not being long enough.
Gerald Minor, the chief of the Pittsville Fire Department, said, “We had a driveway that was over a half mile long, so units had to back in a half mile to dump their water, we had to shuttle firefighters on ATVs.”
Minor said that soon that should be a thing of the past, thanks to a new system that eight area fire departments are implementing. The system involves color coding driveways based on how long they are, and placing a colored sign just below a home’s street number. When firefighters arrive, they know how long a hose they’ll need.
Minor said, “That’s the biggest savings right there, if we know ahead of time that I’m going to a thousand-foot driveway, I know what my setup needs to be before I get there.”
It doesn’t cost taxpayers anything. The departments themselves are paying for the tags and installation.
