Fire hydrant requirements small estate

Fluffybums

Not sure if this is the correct place for this post, apologies if it not.

I live in a 7 year old estate of 20 houses, all wood frame, with its own borehole supplying the water.

There was a fire in the village recently for which the Fire Service needed to access a second hydrant in order to fight it effectively. The fire had resulted in the electricity line being cut so we had no electricity which meant we had no running water. The second hydrant, it is a buried connection point, is in the middle of the road in the estate, we obviously showed the fireman where the hydrant is and pointed out that the water was off. The hoses were connected to the hydrant and there was a conversation between a couple of fireman that seemed to be about thread sizes(??) but nothing happened. I took the fireman up to show him the well and he said they might be able to bring in something to pump direct, this didn't happen. They ended up using two water trucks to go up and down to the river 10-15km away.

As you can imagine I am now a little concerned that the hydrant in the estate is little more than window dressing. I have checked the planning permission and one of the conditions is
Cond. No. 17: Fire Hydrants to be installed in accordance with Technical Guidance Document B of the Building Regulations 1997 and BS 5306 Part 1 1976.

My question is what does this mean? Someone was saying that the well should have had a back up power supply and that it is a criminal offense that it does not. Thanks for any help.

Poor Uncle Tom

Start at page 121
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1640,en.pdf

20 houses with say an average of 100m2 ground floor area = 2,000m2 => 2 hydrants.

Check with your local Fire Chief about size of ring main and pressure required, if the minimum can't be maintained a reservoir need to be fitted to accommodate emergencies (water storage tank capable of being used by gravity flow)

It's pretty standard stuff.