This advisory is intended to alert state agencies and their professional consultants of the need to provide fire protection water supplies for their building construction projects. A portion of the project budget should be allocated for this purpose. Section 507 Fire Protection Water Supplies of the Virginia Statewide Fire Protection Code requires projects to have an approved water supply. This water supply can be accomplished by several methods.

Many projects have fire hydrants that are connected to a public water system. Hydrants are optimally spaced when fire hoses can reach the far side of the building using 400 feet of hose. When the building is equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system the hose length can be 600 feet. Fire hydrants are connected to a minimum 6 inch water line. Private fire service mains are installed according to NFPA 24.

Providing an approved water supply in some suburban and rural areas is more difficult to achieve. Typically a dry hydrant is connected to a water source such as a buried fire tank, a wet retention pond, a lake, a continuously flowing creek, or a river. A dry hydrant is a vertically oriented 6-inch pipe with a 4 ½ inch steamer hose connection mounted on the side of the pipe. A strainer is mounted at the hose connection.

When connected to an open body of water the dry hydrant is an L shaped piping arrangement with one leg into the earth and the other leg horizontally into the water with a strainer at the end. Dry hydrants are installed according to NFPA 1231: Standard on Water Supplies for Suburban and Rural Fire Fighting. Water tanks are installed according to NFPA 22: Standards for Water Tanks for Private Fire Protection.

As a last resort, the local fire department may agree to provide tanker trucks in order to provide an approved water supply. This method involves shuttling fire tankers from the fire to a water source. Adequate water can usually be brought to the site to control the fire, but time delays may result in the loss of the structure. The fire flow requirements vary with each building and the available water source. The Commonwealth of Virginia has not adopted Appendix B Fire-Flow Requirements for Buildings which is part of the Virginia

Statewide Fire Prevention Code. Buildings with automatic sprinkler systems must have a minimum water flow for the most hydraulically demanding area of application plus the required hose allowance or have adequate water flow for the standpipe system when it has a greater flow than the sprinkler system. Where the water supply is provided via a dry hydrant a simple 3 variable formula from NFPA 1142: Standard on Water

Supplies for Suburban and Rural Fire Fighting may be used. Starting with the budgeting phase state agencies need to provide water supplies for fire protection. Fire flow requirements may be based on the construction type, the occupancy hazard classification, the volume and height of the building and its location.

Reprinted with permission from Virginia’s Bureau of Capital Outlay Management, Department of General Services

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