Savannah Eller
The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)
(TNS)
When a fire engulfed a house in the Black Forest neighborhood of Wissler’s Ranch in 2017, the development’s three 10,000-gallon water cisterns built in the 1990s were tested and failed in a real-world situation.
Rather than draw from the cisterns, which were unpressurized and would have required time and special equipment to pump water from, firefighters traveled five miles away to a pressurized fire hydrant. The 45-minute drive and fill up made fighting the blaze difficult and ultimately unsuccessful.
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“In the meantime, the house burned to the ground,” said Wissler’s Ranch Homeowner’s Association Vice President Peter Popp.
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Instead of leaving the vulnerability in place, the neighbors of the community of spacious ranch-style homes — which also were in danger during the Black Forest fire of 2013 — decided to fix the issue themselves. The HOA voted on a special assessment for the $350,000-plus cost of a new pressurized system, complete with a 35,000-gallon tank and a fire hydrant. Each of the 133 homeowners paid a share of about $2,800.
“They did it very quickly,” said Wissler’s Ranch President Harold Goldback. “I was shocked at the response.”
The construction process, which included connecting the new cistern to one of the old ones for a 45,000-gallon total capacity, took nine months.
Wissler Ranch cistern
The spring 2024 arrival of Wissler Ranch’s new 45,000-gallon cistern.
This week the neighborhood unveiled the project with a demonstration from the Monument Fire Department, which hooked an engine up to the new cistern and produced an arch of water for a crowd of neighbors. A community barbecue followed.
Jonathan Bradley, the division chief of community risk reduction at Monument Fire, said the hydrant will help firefighters protect Wissler Ranch and surrounding neighborhoods from single-home fires and wildfires.
“Rural firefighting is difficult,” he said. “It’s really, really difficult to save people’s property when we have a 10- to 15-minute response to get here, and if we run out of water, there’s not much we can do. So having something like this allows us to get ahead and stay ahead of a fire.”
Bradley said that some new housing developments in the area are building pressurized systems, but that the cost of replacement for outdated cisterns can be a tough sell for existing neighborhoods like Wissler Ranch.
Popp said that Wissler Ranch homeowners are looking into whether the new hydrant will help them keep or reduce the cost of home insurance. In the meantime, he said the hydrant was worth it for peace of mind.
“It just makes everybody sleep better,” he said.
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