OpenStreetMap

Mapping considered Malicious (if Fire Hydrants)

Posted by alexkemp on 25 October 2016 in English. Last updated on 26 October 2016.

In Mysterious Markers (22 Oct) I showed the following ancient markers from the NCWW:

mysterious markers identified

Really, this was a case of “Nothing to see here, please move on” as they were simply older variations on the modern “Sluice Valve” (SV) & “Fire Hydrant” (H) ‘grave-stone’ wall plates used by Severn Trent elsewhere in Nottingham. As escada pointed out in the comments, both hydrants and sluice-valves can be mapped (though currently shown only on the specialist osmhydrant.org or openfiremap.org). The kicker came in a comment from Andy Mackey, giving a link to a blog post from Chris Hill in 2012. A 2016 comment in that blog post said that the UK authorities consider mapping Fire Hydrants to be a terrorist act (no kidding):

  1. 16 February 2015: Andy Mabbett made a FoI request to the West Midlands Fire Service for geo-locations of all FH within their area (see whatdotheyknow.com)
  2. 11 March 2015: Request refused, citing “..for the purposes of safeguarding national security … protecting potential targets … protect the critical national infrastructure and national security”
  3. 11 March 2015: Andy requests an internal review of the decision
  4. 3 June 2015: The response “..is relevant as the current threat level from terrorism in the United Kingdom is deemed to be SEVERE … publishing information about water networks and other parts of the critical national infrastructure could expose vulnerabilities in the network and pose a serious risk to public health either through non availability of water resource or contamination of supplies”

<sarcasm>
I’m now up in arms at Severn Trent. I mean, HOW DARE THEY SUPPORT TERRORISTS? Just look at this public support for terrorists from ST that I found at the top of Moore Road just today (25 Oct):

ST support for terrorists

I mean, how dare they? You can walk down any road in Nottingham & find bright yellow signs clearly marking every vulnerability in the water network, making attacks from the Gestapo as easy as can be. And whilst we are at it, how come that all the street signs are still up?

I think that it is time that the bosses of Severn Trent were rounded up, before it’s too late.
</sarcasm>

As my response, I’m making a point of mapping every Fire Hydrant that I can find. Stupid prats.

Location: Porchester Gardens, Woodthorpe, Carlton, Gedling, Nottinghamshire, England, United Kingdom

Discussion

Comment from Warin61 on 25 October 2016 at 21:04

If ‘they’ are that worried then they would not have markers at all!

Public phone boxes, post boxes and toilets would be subject to far more vandalism than fire hydrants.

I think it just that ‘they’ cannot see it being usefull to ‘them’ (office workers I would think).

The actual fire fighters would probably like to have them mapped so they can find them with more ease. Around here they are marked with a yellow ‘H’ painted on the road, one extent of the ‘H” is extended into an arrow that points to the hydrant. In addition a blue catseye is placed in the center of the road. In addition to fire hydrants there is a desire for ‘static water supply’ to be marked SWS, usually near the letter box. These are usually swimming pools, where several hydrants are in use the water supply can drop .. so a static water supply can be very usefull when demand is high e.g. where the fire front is some miles wide. Usually where the fire front gets big the fire fighters need to be supplemented by additional fighters drawn in from surrounding areas - sometimes 1,000 of miles away … even internationally. An accurate map may be very usefull for them as they would have no local knowledge.

This http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/23532/Bush-Fire-Bulletin-LIFTOUT-HydrantMarkers.pdf shows some examples of the local hydrant markers. I have not seen any of the primary or secondary hydrant markers for quite some time though I have not been looking for them. I do see the SWS markers and the yellow H and blue catseyes.

Comment from kucai on 26 October 2016 at 04:44

Terrorist symphatizer, you! ;)

Comment from escada on 26 October 2016 at 05:29

Alex,

you might be interested in the following bits of information:

This talk at SOTM US by an officer from a fire department, explains in which information they are interested. Besides the fire hydrants of course.

And there are at least 2 maps that show fire hydrants * OsmHydrant * OpenFireMap

I also map a lot of fire hydrants. In Belgium, most of them are underground, probably less vulnerable to vandalism, although I still have to see the first pillar shaped one that is vandalized. The markers on the other hand are often in bad condition. The main problem with underground fire hydrants in rural areas is that they tend to get overgrown or are covered with sand.

Comment from Stereo on 26 October 2016 at 14:56

What I’m reading between the lines of their response is that some areas aren’t covered by hydrants and would therefore make good arson targets.

Comment from alexkemp on 27 October 2016 at 09:54

Good point, @Stereo, I never thought of that. Bureaucrats using a terrorism excuse to cover up their inaction. Yup, sounds certain to me.

Comment from Warin61 on 27 October 2016 at 21:38

I would think that places without hydrants would be rural - places without much infrastructure to protect. Typically hydrants are installed along with the mains water supply, if you have mains water you get hydrants.

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