Wednesday, August 12, 2009

PDP #84: Hydrant of Blue

I found this blue hydrant along rue Berri in Montreal while I believed I was walking south, but was in fact walking north; if not for Henri-Bourassa metro station, I might've ended up in the Rivière des Prairies. It's not as if red fire hydrants don't exist in Montreal; I saw a few of them while I was there.

If any Montrealers know what the function of this is, or whether it's just an ordinary fire hydrant that happens to be blue instead of red (and, if so, why), that'd be pretty awesome, actually.

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6 comments:

  1. When I was a kid, they had fire hydrant decorating contests. Painted them to look like animals, and have spots and patterns. I don't believe the color of the hydrant changes the functionality or the purpose of the things. Just a cool color. :P

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  2. I've seen blue fire hydrants before. I don't recall where, but it was somewhere in Ontario. The fire hydrants in Whitby are yellow.

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  3. i had the same question last july when i was in montreal. do you know parking is allowed in front of them. i saw one on st denis and across the street there was red one.i asked locals and nobody knew.

    carlos

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  4. Hi,
    The blue ones belong to the Metro subway system and are not really considered fire hydrants. That is why you can park next to them. They are used as standpipes and don't have any water in them. They connect to pipes that go to the subway. If there is a fire in the subway, they connect a red fire hydrant up to the blue one and the water goes to fight the fire below. Montreal also has green hydrants that operate the same way but I think those are for underground tunnels.

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  5. Blue hydrants? it can be a little confusing in case of emergency because red or yellow are more likely to catch a person attention than blue.

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  6. who cares if they catch someones eye, they are for firefighters. blue means u can park in front of it,its for metros

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