Although there are plenty of fire hydrants located in the city and on St. Simons Island, Glynn County firefighters still rely heavily on water tankers to fight fires in the less populated western and northern parts of the County.

Unlike fire hydrants, the tanker trucks have limited capacity and can carry only 2,500 gallons of water each.

According to Capt. Jerome Johnson of the Glynn County Fire Department, more hydrants have been installed in the western part of the county during the last four months. He said did not know the exact number.

“Right now, we have lines running up Emmanuel Church Road and that area,” he said. “I understand there will be some going up (U.S. 82) and eventually to (Ga. 99) that will cut through (Ga. 99) and back around to (U.S. 341) eventually.”

Johnson said there are plans to put more hydrants in the western part of the county, although he did not know specific dates or details on Monday.

The downside of tankers is that they have to be shuttled back and forth from a water source when they become depleted.

They can be filled with water from a so-called dry hydrant or pull water directly from nearby streams, rivers or lakes, Johnson said.

A dry hydrant is a non-pressurized pipe system permanently installed in a body of water that provides a suction supply of water to fire department tank trucks.

At a fire, Johnson said the engines pull the water from the tankers so that the water pressure will be stronger.

“The tankers have pumps that run at roughly 250 gallons per minute, but the engines usually pull up next to the tankers and can pull anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 gallons per minute, depending on the truck,” he said. “We seldom use the small pumps on the tankers.”

The fire engines also have their own water source. Each can carry up to 1,000 gallons of water.

The flow rate of fire hydrants throughout the county varies from 700 gallons per minute up to 1,500 gallons per minute, Johnson said.