D.C. Fire Officials, WASA Point Fingers After Blaze

By Sylvia Moreno and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 5, 2007

As an Adams Morgan condominium building burned Monday morning, District firefighters searching for adequate water pressure opened nearly a dozen nearby hydrants, and a water agency official on the scene to help warned that a dramatic increase in water flow could break the area's antiquated and undersize water mains.

The details were presented at a D.C. Council hearing held yesterday to determine why it took more than six hours to contain the fire at the 30-unit building in the 2600 block of Adams Mill Road NW. Officials who testified also revealed major communication problems between the D.C. fire department and D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.

Problems encountered at the Adams Morgan fire have raised concerns about fighting large fires in neighborhoods served by small-diameter water mains. Of the District's 1,300 miles of water lines, 1,075 are 12 inches and smaller in diameter. City officials immediately called on WASA to update its water main replacement plan, and the agency's board of directors yesterday directed its staff to come up with a plan within a month.

At the hearing, fire officials played recordings of radio calls from firefighters describing hydrants going "dead" as it turned into a four-alarm fire. A WASA official who responded to the scene had an outdated water main map and was able to order only a slight increase in water pressure from a nearby pumping station, Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin said.

"He said, 'I can give you five more pounds of pressure or nothing at all,' " Rubin said at the hearing, called by D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the Adams Morgan area.

Attempts to draw enough water to fight the fire were not successful until an hour and a half after the blaze started and crews had unfurled 4,000 feet of hose to Connecticut Avenue and 3,000 feet of hose to Columbia Road, where 20-inch mains are located.

But WASA's chief engineer, John T. Dunn, testified that the agency had determined this week that two hydrants at Columbia Road and 18th Street NW, 600 feet from the building, were connected to 12- and 16-inch water mains. When tested Wednesday, the hydrants pumped 3,500 gallons per minute -- the amount that fire officials said they needed to put out the fire, he said.

Dunn said he had reports from the scene that a firetruck was connected to at least one of the two hydrants.

He added that sending fire crews outside the immediate neighborhood to bring in sufficient water to fight a large fire is not unusual. "In areas where you have small mains, you're able to respond to a one- or two-alarm fire," he said. "But once you exceed that, you've got to go out and bring in flow from larger mains. That's a fairly standard procedure."

Rubin said he could not immediately confirm whether firefighters used the two hydrants at Columbia and 18th streets. An "after-incident" report will outline the timeline of the fire, the response, and which hydrants were used and for how long.

"The response that all we had to do was connect to two different hydrants I find perplexing and, frankly, not true," Rubin said. "All the facilities we used did not suppress the fire in the manner they should have."

Early on, two WASA workers were at the scene, Rubin said, and "they never offered any information other than there was adequate water flow and they could only add five pounds of water pressure."

As to whether the department should have gone outside Adams Morgan, to Woodley Park, for water, Rubin said such action would have been precluded had firefighters had enough water when they arrived at the scene. Asked whether the lack of water contributed to the acceleration of the fire, Rubin said: "Tremendously. We feel we should have handled this as a two-alarm fire."

Graham said he was seeking answers to several key questions.

"Our firefighters did not fail us at the scene, but our water system surely did," he said. "Knowing what we know now, is Adams Morgan safe in another major fire? How could it happen that entire neighborhoods are under threat of burning to the ground?"

Firefighters were impeded in their job because of the century-old six-inch water mains in Adams Morgan, which were unable to supply water fast enough to put out the fire, officials said.

No one was seriously injured, but damage to the building was estimated to be in the millions. Authorities determined that the fire was accidental, started by an electrical problem near the roof deck.

Of the city's 1,300 miles of water lines, 13 percent, or 173 miles, are six inches in diameter. Most date to the 1800s and early 1900s and are scheduled to be replaced under a 20-year facilities plan WASA adopted in 2000.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), Graham and fire officials have called for immediate action to address aging and undersize mains throughout the city. Yesterday, the 11-member WASA board directed the agency's general manager, Jerry Johnson, and his staff to "reevaluate its approach and schedule for water main upgrades."

Board Chairman Robin B. Martin ordered a one-month turnaround for a comprehensive evaluation of District neighborhoods that are served by small-size mains. The agency, he said, must ensure "that there is an adequate supply of water within a reasonable distance to provide adequate coverage."

The water mains are the responsibility of WASA, which was criticized this year by city officials for not acting quickly enough to fix broken fire hydrants. The complaints came after a major fire at the Georgetown public library, where the first two hydrants tapped by firefighters did not work. They wound up using hydrants about two blocks away.

The District is one of many cities struggling with aging water pipelines. A 2001 report by the American Water Works Association estimated that U.S. jurisdictions would have to spend $250 billion over 30 years to replace worn-out water pipes and related structures.

Many of the mains date from building booms in the late-1800s and first half of the 20th century and are reaching the end of their usefulness, the report said. It predicted "significant increases" in the rate at which pipes break and said some municipalities would find their pipes too small to carry the amount of water needed for firefighting or other uses.

Alan Roberson, director of security and regulatory affairs for the American Water Works Association, cautioned that the flow of water to a fire involves more than the size of the water main in the neighborhood.

"Size of the line is a factor, but it's one factor," he said. Other issues include the level of corrosion of a pipe and its distance from a pumping station. "If you have an eight-inch line with corrosion, it could be worse than a six-inch line that's pretty clean," he said.

Roberson said the number of six-inch mains in the District does not seem unusually high. The bottom line, he said, is that city authorities "need to have some kind of regular system for testing these hydrants" throughout the District.