Q: Do you fill swimming pools?

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A: The short answer is no, for the following reasons:

1. We’d be competing with private businesses who deliver water.

2. The water sources we fill our tenders from (i.e. hydrants), depending on where you live in our jurisdiction, belong to the City of Veneta, the City of Junction City, or EWEB, so it’s their water to sell. Our agreements with those water providers is that we are free to use the water for firefighting. Our other source would be for us to draft it out of Fern Ridge....but I don't think you want that water in your pool!

3. Some people think that we might use swimming pools as a water source for firefighting, and could justify it that way, but consider that we would have to put a 40,000+ pound truck within 20 feet of the pool in order to pump from it….it’s pretty rare for pools to be that close to a road that can support that weight. Above ground pools really don’t work, as the weight of a 6” diameter hose full of water draped over the side of the pool would collapse the sidewall of the pool.

4. We have 8 water tenders that carry 3,000 gallons each, so the chance of us needing more water than that for a house fire is unlikely.