Fire Chief: Please Shovel Around Your Fire Hydrant

A shoveled-around fire hydrant is a happy fire hydrant -- or, more accurately, it's in a safer neighborhood.

If your house is in flames, you don't want firefighters struggling to get a hose hooked up to a hydrant that's deep in snow -- or maybe covered in snow and difficult to even find.

So you could do yourself, your family and your neighbors a lot of good by getting the snow away from that hydrant -- and it's best of all if you can get a bit of a walkway between the hydrant and the nearby street, despite the embankment that snowplows have created.

Ron Riolo, chief of  Noroton Heights Fire Department says clearing hydrants of snow is important. "In an emergency it just takes that much longer to get a water supply" if the hydrant needs to be dug out.

You want your family safe, you want your pets safe, you want to keep that old photo album. Start digging. If the snow is too hard for the snow shovel, the regular shovel in the garage or shed should do it. Put the gloves and boots on.