By FireRescue1 Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif. — A viral photo is stirring up backlash and debate among citizens about fire department policies.
CBSLA reported that members of the Anaheim Fire & Rescue responded to the call of a residential fire and were met with a car parked directly in front of the fire hydrant.
“Most people think they can park in front of a fire hydrant and nothing’s gonna happen, and in a lot of times that’s true,” Sgt. Daron Wyatt said. “But we do have instances where there is an actual fire, and in this case, it came in as a residential fire with people trapped inside.”
Firefighters broke both back passenger windows of the parked car and snaked the hose through, and eight people were eventually evacuated from the house fire. Afterward, Wyatt took a photo of the hose strategy.
However, after he posted the photo on the department’s Facebook page, he received comments asking why firefighters didn’t go under or over the car, instead of choosing to break the car’s windows.
“Some people thought we posted the picture to humiliate somebody; we did not. We just wanted to illustrate and educate,” Wyatt said. “We had a few people that really questioned why we didn’t put the hose underneath the car or around the car or over the car. We wanted to demonstrate to those people that it just isn’t feasible to do that. It reduced the flow of the water because of the kind in the hose.”
The department posted a public service announcement video to their social media account on Friday, demonstrating the impossibility of working around a car parked in front of a fire hydrant.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=399087884227888