Area's sprawl adds to firefighters' work

A new growing pain in the development of Las Vegas and Henderson has surfaced in the outlying areas of the cities: Residents building on the valley's perimeter are noticing that fire hydrants are few and far between.

"There aren't that many water lines out here yet, but new lines are always going in," said Renae Wallin at her home near south Las Vegas Boulevard south of Blue Diamond Road.

"We didn't really worry about a lack of fire hydrants when we built our house, but the fire down the road did give us something to think about."

That "fire down the road" was a house fire on June 30 three blocks away from Wallin's home.

The fire at 11040 Rancho Destino Road caused $750,000 in damage before 30 firefighters and 10 fire trucks could put the blaze out. Firefighters were not helped by the fact that the nearest hydrant was 1 frac1/2 miles away, requiring the engines to shuttle water to the fire.

"We run into having to shuttle water from time to time on the outskirts of town," Ken Riddle, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman, said. "It's a part of a growing city that we have to deal with."

Fire engines carry 1,000 gallons of water, and if there are no hydrants, a tanker truck that holds 5,000 gallons of water can be called into service, Riddle said.

There are hydrants at Del Webb's San Rafael development about two miles from where the Rancho Destino fire occurred. The fact that San Rafael has hydrants and the homes two miles away do not is the result of county regulations.

If a house is built more than 1,000 feet from a water line and is not part of a group of at least five homes, a hydrant will not be placed by that home, according to Clark County regulations.

"It's growing out here, so they'll have to eventually put the hydrants and water lines in," Wallin said. "Once there are some more houses like in the Del Webb subdivision, there will be a lot of hydrants and a lot more people."

Fires on the outskirts of Las Vegas have always been harder to fight because of the lack of hydrants, Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

"In America, the home is a family's castle," Szymanski said. "Where somebody wants to put his house is pretty much his own business. But they have to realize that if they build in certain places, they may have to give up some things, at least temporarily."

In 1996 a fire caused $200,000 in damage to a home on Copper Road, near east Bonanza Road. The fire was difficult to contain because it was at the base of Sunrise Mountain where water and fire hydrants were scarce, fire officials said at the time.

Now hydrants dot the surface streets that run off of Bonanza because of the number of people who have moved into the area.

Wallin and other residents in southeast Las Vegas are going through something that Laura Zemp, a resident of northwest Las Vegas, said she has already been through.

"For a long time we didn't have any hydrants or anything else out here, for that matter," said Zemp, whose house sits at the corner of Durango and Alexander roads.

Fire safety and having hydrants available is important, Zemp said, but the coming of hydrants also means more people in what was once a sparsely populated area.

"The corner of Durango and Alexander has been zoned for commercial growth," Zemp said. "We're not happy about that, but there will soon be a lot of fire hydrants around here. I guess you can't have it both ways."

About 18,000 fire hydrants are in place in the Las Vegas area, and more will be added as the city grows, Szymanski said.

"You can't tell people where to live, but I do know that people who live in the extreme parts of northwest Las Vegas pay higher fire insurance because of the lack of water," Riddle said. "Until the city catches up with them, residential sprinkler systems are a good defense against fires."

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