Director Vandehey Confirms Appleton’s Fire Hydrants Are Painted To Indicate Flow Rate

During the 07/28/2021 Safety and Licensing Committee meeting, the Fire Department’s Chief Jeremy Hansen told the committee that although there is a nationally recognized color coding scheme for fire hydrant flow to indicate the water flow rate, the city of Appleton does not do that and the color of our hydrants is just an arbitrary choice. This seemed at odds with an article the Post Crescent had run a year ago indicating that hydrant colors were related to water flow rate.

I reached out to Public Works Director Paula Vandehey and asked for a definitive answer. Per her email:

We do paint our fire hydrants to indicate the flow rate of each hydrant consistent with NFPA 291 as follows:

Blue – 1500 GPM or more
Green – 1000-1499 GPM
Orange – 500-999 GPM
Red – Below 500 GPM

Prior to 2015 city staff was responsible for painting hydrants. The colors stayed consistent with the explanation above, but the scheme in which they were painted changed some time prior to 2015. Example: Hydrants used to be painted yellow and only the caps were painted blue, green, orange, or red to indicate the flow rate. Now the entire hydrant is painted blue, green, orange, or red to indicate the flow rate and all the caps are painted black.

Since 2015 the city has hired a contractor to sandblast and paint hydrants to indicate flow rate. This contract is budgeted for and we have been able to have them paint around 150 hydrants a year. In addition to the contractor painting hydrants, water division staff also paints hydrants. Water staff paints anywhere between 50-100 hydrants by hand based on complaint/concern basis when we learn of them from residents and city staff. It is important to note that there are still some hydrants that are painted with the scheme from prior to 2015, but we are working toward getting all the hydrants painted to meet the current scheme.

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Whether or not the Fire Department was aware the hydrants were painted to indicate flow rate, Chief Hansen had mentioned during that same Safety and Licensing meeting that their fire fighting capabilities were not impacted, but I would assume he’ll still be happy to learn that flow rate is clearly shown by the color of the hydrants.