A routine garage fire call in Queen Creek turned into a high-pressure scramble Tuesday night when firefighters rolled up and found the closest fire hydrant would not produce water, forcing crews to improvise as flames tore through a home.
According to a news release from the Town of Queen Creek, the blaze started in the 21000 block of East Timberline Road as a small garage fire and was upgraded to a working fire even before the first engines arrived. The incident was quickly bumped to a first-alarm response, bringing 26 units from Queen Creek, Mesa and Gilbert through the region’s automatic aid system.
Neighbor Rick Paradis told ABC15 Arizona that “they all arrived on scene, only to find that the fire hydrant down the street was not working.” With the nearest hydrant out of service, crews shifted tactics, relying first on the water they carried on their engines, then stretching lines to hydrants to the east and west while utility crews rushed in to restore service. Neighbors said one home was a total loss.
Town Response And Hydrant Fixes
Town officials said utility crews restored water service to three of the four affected hydrants that same night. All 51 hydrants in the neighborhood were tested the next day, according to the release. Two of those hydrants needed onsite repairs and were fixed the following day. No injuries were reported.
The town added that it has completed about 1,350 hydrant inspections since late fall and expects to have every town hydrant inspected by the end of the year.
Valley Concerns Over Out-Of-Service Hydrants
The Queen Creek scare comes as fire hydrant reliability is already under scrutiny elsewhere in the Valley. In Phoenix, relatives have questioned an inoperable hydrant located near a deadly mobile-home fire. Arizona's Family reports that Phoenix Water Services says fewer than 1% of its roughly 54,500 hydrants are not working at any given time and that the department aims to repair breaks within 21 days.
Queen Creek officials are urging residents to flag damaged or suspicious-looking hydrants through the town’s SeeClickFix portal, ABC15 Arizona noted. Investigators are still working to determine what sparked the Timberline Road blaze.
