THOMASVILLE — Thomas County Fire Department officials are advising residents to not be alarmed by plastic bags over some fire hydrants in the six municipalities under its jurisdiction.

“We are in the process of doing flow calculations on all the hydrants in all the small municipalities,” Chief Chris Jones said. “We have always done hydrant flows tests — twice a year — where we take the caps off the hydrants, open up the water and do the low flow flush. We’re making sure parts work correctly and flowing trash out of the lines. We’re also checking the water system. We should be winding up this week.”

The municipalities where hydrants are being tested are Boston, Barwick, Pavo, Meigs, Ochlocknee and Coolidge.

Jones said, once the test is conducted, hydrants will be painted according to how much water they produce (gallons per minute) using color standards from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

Hydrants will be painted yellow to represent municipal systems and the caps painted according to the color code. Those who do not produce at least 250 gallons per minute and all components are working will be painted black to alert fire personnel not to attempt to use the hydrant for fighting fires.

“If there is a hydrant that won’t produce a minimum of 250 gallons per minute or if they won’t function properly, we are bagging them to indicate they are out of service,” Jones said. “Part of the reason we are doing this is so, when we contact all the municipalities’ water departments, they will know exactly which hydrant it is instead of telling them, ‘It’s the one on Smith Street next to this house.’”

The Times-Enterprise received a phone call from a concerned resident in Meigs about plastic bags over fire hydrants last week.

Levon Gassett, Meigs volunteer fire chief, a lieutenant with Thomas County Fire Department and a Meigs City Council member, said the city previously added 12 hydrants to its system on the Mitchell County end and a couple of streets on the Thomas County end.

Jones said 17 of 74 hydrants in Meigs have been bagged.

“We’ve got three new ones already on hand to replace the worst ones,” Gassett said. “The ones that are just real hard to cut on we’re going to service them and see if we can get them to function. We’ll also paint the necessary ones black so fire crews will know not to use it in case of a fire.”

Jones said the test and painting of the hydrants is beneficial for the county’s Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating.

“We’re graded on communications center at 10 percent, the fire department is 50 percent and the water/water systems is 40 percent so making sure these hydrants are working properly is very important,” he said.

Flow tests started in May and continued through June, Jones said. He expects to be finished (including painting) by the end of this month.

“Three quarters of all hydrants have been done,” he said. “I’d say about 75 percent have orange caps (500-900 gallons per minute), and that is average. We contact each city’s water department, but it is up to each city what it does with the hydrants.”

Jones added he’s told those municipalities that have asked what to do if they could not afford to replace or repair all their bagged hydrants to replace what they can and plan for more in next year’s budget.

Gassett felt it would “definitely be on the agenda” for Meigs to look at replacing other inoperable hydrants in the budget.