Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Fire Hydrants

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why fire hydrants are secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Fire hydrants. Known for dog pee. Famous for public safety as well. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why fire hydrants are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host Katie Golden. Katie, what is your relationship to or opinion of fire hydrants? Well, you know, I got that cartoon dog brain. So whenever I see one, I either fall in love or go potty on it. I've never really interacted much with fire hydrants. I've never used a fire hydrant. I was at an airport once with my dog, flying her all the way to Italy so she can live with us,

which she did not enjoy. The whole time she was doing her best Seinfeld impression, going like, what's the deal with airlines? Also, I'm very scared and a dog and you can't explain to me what's happening. But yeah, the airport had like a dog toilet. It had a fire hydrant in the dog toilet. And I was trying to tell my dog like, this is your dog toilet. Remember from cartoons? And she had no idea what to do about it. I was like, no, no, see, like it's a fire hydrant from cartoons. You're a dog.

It's a dog toilet. And she had no concept of it being a toilet and refused to go to the bathroom until we reached Italy. Oh. I really tried to research why dogs want to pee on fire hydrants because I haven't even owned a dog. I just know that's one of the things they allegedly do. And it seems like they do do that. And the best I could find is that maybe they are sort of shaped like tree trunks. But there's not great research sources out there about the dog pee on fire hydrants situation. My dog has never peed on a fire hydrant because she respects firefighters too much. Just saluting the flag as she uses a regular human toilet. No.

More like flipping through her calendar, her sexy firefighter calendar. Oh, I mean, who among us does not? Yeah. And they're sexy Dalmatians, right? They're all dogs. Yeah, exactly. And they're sexy Dalmatians, right? They're all dogs. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And I guess I share the associations because also, especially when we were previously living in Brooklyn, New York, I just constantly tried to find parking for our car that we kept from North Carolina that would not be in front of a fire hydrant. Because it is an important safety thing. Fires grow very fast as soon as they start and every second counts. Like it is meaningful to keep that clear for fire services. They're not just being persnickety. thick to spray so much water. So like having your car in the way can actually mess them up. And sometimes they have to break your windows to put the hose through. So, you know, don't park there unless you have a dog who really needs to go to the bathroom and it's like an emergency. No, don't even park it when your dog has to have a potty emergency. My thinking is I respect all laws, but they are superseded by Katie's dog Cookie specifically. It's very important to me that Cookie be cared for and taken care of. So that's the rules. I'd break any law for my dog. I'd kill. I'd kill for my dog. Murder for my dog.

Cutting this. Cutting this out of the show. And this topic was suggested by a wonderful listener and pal of the show, Paul Garaventa. Thank you, Paul. He's been with us for a long time and people were excited about this on Discord. And I am too, because it turns out there is a ton here and particularly numbers heavy episode on every episode. Our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics this week week, that's in a segment called... I am a real statistician. Crunching numbers for all humans.

I am a real statistician. Calculate right. Spreading the light. And that name was submitted by TheShermbank on Discord. Thank you, TheShermbank. I have a new name for this every week. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit through Discord or to SifPod at gmail.com.

I don't know if folks know that was based on the Hulk Hogan theme song from Wrestling. That was very fun. Now I hear it. This is the most exciting day for statisticians everywhere because now they have a song, finally. And not just any song, but like a cool bandanas and ripping off t-shirts song, you know? Great. Really good. And again, ton of numbers. The first one this week is the 200s BC. We are dipping once into ancient times, the 200s BC as the approximate lifetime of an inventor named Tysibius. Tysibius. And Tysibius,

he was culturally Greek, lived in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, and he might have developed the first water pumps for tasks such as fighting fires. Oh, okay. All right. Fires were a problem back then, such as Rome being on fire. The Library of Alexandria was on fire once. Could have used a hydrant for that one. And this is basically touching on ancient times to clarify that hydrants weren't any good until around the 1800s AD. But there were versions of a usually human powered

pump to raise water out of a container or even some kind of piping. And we only have records of people writing about this guy. We don't really have much about the actual pumps. But according to the Aquincum Archaeological Museum in Budapest, Hungary, Tisivius developed a piston pump where it's human physical effort to raise water. And according to Popular Mechanics, this technology did not become popular or common for many centuries. Like most places, firefighting was just what water do we have run over with buckets? I guess we'll figure it out as we go. So how does a piston pump work? I decided I'm going to link people because it's very visual, but it's basically human physical effort

raising water through a pipe by just pushing back and forth. And so it's not an amazing system, but it's pretty similar to most hand pumps for water that you find at, I don't know, a campsite or some other very basic situation. I see. And today's fire hydrants are far more advanced. Also, most hydrants are essentially just a valve. It's connected to a broader water system for the city where the gravity of water towers and the electrically powered mechanical pumps of the city waterworks create water pressure. And with a fire hydrant, you're simply opening a valve and connecting hoses. The firefighters on the scene are not in charge of the water pressure. So we've got a much better thing going on now. Another thing I learned from cartoons is that

I think like old timey firefighters used to use pumps because I think I remember seeing pumps on like old timey firefighter wagons and associate that with old timey firefighters is like they would pump stuff really like fiercely to try to fight the fire and the water come gushing out. And then there'd be some joke because it's a cartoon. But, you know, that that's how that's basically all of my historical knowledge of firefighters is through cartoons. I like that there are no cartoons about fighting a fire and using a hydrant going smoothly. That's great. There's always a guy on the hose being waved through the air by its pure force. Exactly. Or you're putting out, you're like aiming the fire hose at the wrong building. There's so many things that goes wrong in cartoon firefighting.

We can get into that whole history. The way it ties in here is that there have been stages and situations where the pumping comes from the firefighters because the water main is just basically a container. And then there were later situations where the system is pressurized enough that the firefighters are simply releasing water through their tools. So that's a whole thing and does tie into this. But we're going to focus more on the hydrant itself. So we've got the first sort of hydrant thing is a pump by this guy, and it didn't even really catch on. People were not ready for pumps yet. Yeah, society was not just ready to build that kind of infrastructure and focus on it that way. And the whole history of firefighting is sort of spotty and loose across history. There were probably ancient Roman brigades of guys with buckets.

There's descriptions of a Chinese emperor named Ren Zong in the Song Dynasty about a thousand years ago who probably organized human fire brigades. But the hydrant and style we think of today is like 200 to 250 years old at an absolute upper limit of age. So this is very modern stuff. And we'll especially talk about New York City a lot this week. Okay. Were they always red? That's my question. That varies a whole bunch. We're going to do weird color coding at the end. It's so dumb is the short answer. Because looking at modern hydrants, our next number is two. Very simple. Because in the U.S., there are two water uptake systems for fire hydrants. And there's a couple sources here. The SciShow YouTube channel

hosted by Hank Green, the Concerning Reality YouTube channel hosted by Trevor English. They talk about how U.S. modern fire hydrants are either a wet barrel system or a dry barrel system. And we can pretty much tell you which one you have based on your climates. It's a winter thing. And we can pretty much tell you which one you have based on your climates. It's a winter thing. Hmm. Okay. So got wet barrel and we got dry barrel.

Sounds pretty straightforward. One's made out of a wet barrel and one's made out of a dry barrel. Problem solved. Yeah. Everybody's hydrants are wooden, right? And used to have wine in them. Right. It's a little man inside either with a wet barrel or a dry barrel.

Okay, no, tell me what this means. Because he drank the wine or he didn't. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I imagine a little like one of those cartoons. Again, from cartoons, the little guy who wears the barrel because he's got no clothes. So he's either wearing a wet barrel or a dry barrel. Okay, what does this mean, though, for real, for serious? Turns out in technical terms, the thing that I just think of

as a fire hydrant, because I'm used to our above ground hydrant structures here in the U.S., that is technically called a barrel. Okay. Because it's sort of barrel shaped and it can contain water. And so sure. It turns out that in the very hottest parts of the U.S., like Florida and Southern California, hydrants are usually a wet barrel system, which means there's water inside of that, like inside of it above the ground. But that's because they don't have hard winters. Right. So it's not going to freeze and break the hydrant. Exactly. If you did that somewhere with real winter, like New York here, water would freeze, then that expands,

and it would crack and burst and blow up the hydrant, sort of like a house's pipes can burst if there's water left in them that freezes too much. sort of like a house's pipes can burst if there's water left in them that freezes too much. So you listening in the U.S., if you live somewhere where there's ever what I would call real winter, you have a dry barrel hydrant system. And so there is not water inside of that thing unless it's turned on and being used by people. I see. So like if you got a big ax, don't do this. Don't deface hydrants.

And you smacked somehow the wet barrel one, you would see, hey, there's water inside. For the dry barrel, it's just empty unless it's being used. That's right. And so there's totally different valve systems. Those YouTube channels have nice diagrams. With dry barrel hydrants, the nut that you turn to turn it on is usually on the top because there's a rod with a valve going all the way down in order to hold the water down below the ground with a valve. It's below what's called the frost line.

I see. Which is a few meters under the ground with a valve. It's below what's called the frost line. I see. Which is a few meters under the ground because down there it's surprisingly warmer. And so then the water won't freeze and won't blow everything up. So all the water is sort of stored deeper below the hydrant under the frost line. And then when you open up the that little top nipple, can I call it a nipple? I'll call it a valve. I'll be nice. Uh, that top. I'm uncomfortable with the real term of nut.

So if you want to use anything else, that's cool. That's great. Um, so yeah, you open that up and then that, uh, I guess opens up the valve and then all that water that was held underneath the frost line comes gushing up, you know, sprays the dog that was trying to pee on the hydrant. Yeah, just launches it across the street and then it goes out of frame and then there's the sound of a cat being upset and glass breaking. That's right.

Right. Makes sense. Yeah, the wet barrel is a little bit cheaper to build. And so that's why these very warm weather places build them. But pretty much anywhere where there's real winter in the U.S. and then everywhere in Canada, because Canada, it's dry barrel hydrants. Okay. And that difference has always been going on in our lives. It's just not something we ever think about.

The hidden depths of our local fire hydrant. We never ask them how they're doing. Are they feeling wet or are they feeling dry? They're wearing little berets and being artistic in my head now. I like it. It's cool. They can cover their nut slash nipple with the beret. Everyone's more comfortable. Great.

Then there's a set of more numbers here for just the quick timeline of modern U.S. fire hydrants. And my sources conflict on the first number. Either 1801 or 1804 is when hydraulic engineer Frederick Graff Sr. created an early version of what we think of as a fire hydrant in the U.S. 1808 is when the city of New York installed their first one where it's this above ground barrel. And then about 50 years later, 1869, an engineer named Birdsell Holly Jr. I like that. Great name. Birdsell Holly Jr. Yeah, his first name is Birdsell Holly Jr. I like that. Great name. Birdsell Holly Jr. Yeah, his first name is Birdsell. All one word.

It's good. Where'd it go? What happened? Bring it back. But he... Tired of names like Jeremy. We need Birdsell Holly Jr. I'm sorry to Jeremy.

There's nothing wrong with your name. I'm just saying. A little boring when compared to Birdsell. Ever since we said the word Birdsell, they have been racing to their local city hall or other government building to change their name. They've abandoned Jeremy immediately. But 1869, Birdsell Holly Jr. develops a better above-ground fire hydrant that is pretty much what we have today. There's been tinkering and tweaks, but that was a huge national hit design. And that's pretty much where our hydrants come from, this early to mid-1800s.

What was, like, the difference in the design that he did? He mainly built it to handle better plumbing. And this is kind of a future Water Mains episode thing, but he specifically designed it to match better water pressure in new New York water systems. But for a weird reason we're about to talk about here, we actually have sort of limited information about the previous above-ground fire hydrant because of a weird accident. This previous version from either 1801 or 1804, all of that is fuzzy because of an amazing first takeaway here.

Takeaway number one. The first U.S. patent for a modern-style fire hydrant got lost in a fire. That's so... Hmm. What's it called? Alanis Morissette. That's so Alanis Morissette. It's so Jagged Little Pill.

I agree. Isn't it ironic? Yeah, it turns out one fire destroyed the entire first era of United States patents and intellectual property records. Huh. And that included this first hydrant that we set up above ground. Coincidence? Yeah, pretty much. Sounds like Alex is in the pocket of big fire, but OK.

Sounds like Alex is in the pocket of big fire, but okay. I'm some kind of Thomas Edison agent trying to blow up people's old patents and get him more money or something. Key sources here are an amazing piece for Mental Floss by Stacey Conrad, also digital records from the Library of Congress. And this is like a weird Washington, D.C. story, because it turns out in 1836, so 60 years after the Revolution, 1836, in that year, the United States had one single location for all its patent records. Smart.

Which was a giant failed hotel. Good. Not haunted and good. Right. Just ghosts organizing things in the cabinets with little hats on. Yeah. Yeah. It was a hotel like made out of dry wood and wax and twigs. Yeah. Everything was just burning throughout history. Until now, but also including now. It's just what happens when we set up human society. And this building, instead of being a hotel was among other things, patent office, storage of patent records and a post office. So between that and people using fires to heat the building, it was going to burn down. It was just a given. and people using fires to heat the building, it was going to burn down. It was just a given.

And this building, weirdly, was a key part of early United States history. It was built by a Revolutionary War military officer named Samuel Blodgett. Blodgett is another name we need to bring back. Man, Birdsell Blodgett is, I think, like a hit children's detective in my head. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Birdsell Blodgett. It's like Amelia Bedelia rhythms and good. Yeah.

Feels right. Feels good in the mouth. And Samuel Blodgett tried to build a huge hotel in Washington, D.C. that would have been the largest private building in the new capital. But after 17 years of construction, it was not done yet. The U.S. government bought it, finished it in 1810 and took it over for government purposes. And then a couple of years later, the War of 1812 happens. The British burn down most of Washington, D.C. Oh, yeah.

They did that. Those limey jerks. And that's why no one British is allowed to hear the podcast. If you're British, turn it off. Get out of here. Still bad. You got a license for this podcast, do you? Oh, now they're turning it off.

Okay, yeah, forget it. But to me, funny thing happens where the British in 1814 are burning down D.C. They're approaching Blodgett's Hotel that is a government building. Somebody on the scene convinced them that the building was partially owned by British investors, which tricked them into not burning it down. That's some real Wile E. Coyote painting a tunnel on a, like painting a tunnel on a cliff sort of trick, just like, you know, putting a little British flag on the building,

like, no, no, no, it's British. See, it's like, oh, well, I thought it wasn't British. All right, well, I guess we better leave this one alone, boys. Oi, bro, just doing our exact terrible accents of the British troops are like, sounds real. Sounds real. Yep. And yeah, and so in the aftermath of this British attack, Blodgett's Hotel, which is a government building, is one of the biggest buildings left in D.C. And so it becomes the home of the United States Congress for more than a year and gets used for constant, extremely necessary government purposes. Right.

Until 1836, it burns down by accident. By accident. Yeah. Interesting. I wonder if like one of the British people, I guess like they'd be really old by that time, but came back and was like, wait a minute, I've been bamboozled. This was never British at all. And came back and burned it down.

They're in like big shorts carrying a travel guide, a definite tourist mode. And they're like, I'm changing. I'm changing into my red coat stuff. I'm so bad. I'm back on the clock. Oh, geez. Yeah.

And so this building contains about 9,000 drawings and about 7,000 industrial models that comprise the entire intellectual property records of the United States in 1836. And we put it in one spot. Yeah, we put it in one spot. The building was such a tinderbox, it completely burned down within 20 minutes. And Congress spent decades trying to put back together various IP records and could only restore about 3,000 of the patents. The rest just got voided. Yeah.

For purposes of there's nothing left. Sorry. Too bad. A patent for maybe storing your patents in different buildings was lost. That technology was lost in the fire, along with the old fire hydrant technology. Ironically, also the Zune. We didn't realize it, but they already had a patent for the Zune. Right. William Gates I. The one we know is William Gates X or whatever. Yeah. And so one of the patents we lost, ironically, in this huge loss was the Frederick Graff Senior U.S. fire hydrant patent that we think was real and just can't totally confirm that effectively now.

People love the irony of like, oh, the fire hydrant patent was in a fire. of like, oh, the fire hydrant patent was in a fire. On top of that, there's one more layer of Alanis Morissette, because it turns out that this multifunction building also contained a firehouse with firefighters. Yep. Yeah. And the trouble is they had a grand total of one fire hose that was too old and didn't work. Oh, well.

So they couldn't, they just watched the fire basically they couldn't do anything about it just fire identification experts like what you got here i see your problem it is uh it's on fire building's uh building is on uh fire let me hang on let me just like taste a little bit of that. Yep. That is that is fire. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And so that is how the origin of our modern above ground fire hydrants happened, which raises a next question.

That is our next takeaway. What happens between the ancient era of just junk pumps and then modern above ground fire hydrants? For that, we go to takeaway number two. The first fire hydrants were holes in the ground fought over in firefighting gang turf wars. Man, I miss it when turf wars were just about holes in the ground. You know, it was a simpler time. Yeah. When we were just killing each other over holes.

We've talked so much about cartoons. I thought about Bugs Bunny. This is a real cartoon episode, folks. If you didn't grow up on animation, now I'm making a list of who can't listen. If you're British, get out. If you didn't grow up on animation, now I'm making a list of who can't listen. If you're British, get out. If you didn't grow up on animation, get out. Also, I don't mean that. Please stay.

Please listen. I assume these holes were filled with water in some manner? The way this worked, this was especially a 1700s and early 1800s thing, where a lot of cities such as New York had set up water mains, not always pressurized. It was usually sort of a wooden trough or tunnel. But the thing is, they had not reached the point of building above ground hydrants. Private firefighting crews that would dig a hole in the ground to the water main and then use it, physically pump water up from it to fight a fire. And then when they were done, they would plug the hole. And this was called a fire plug, which is still like a term some of the time in random ways today.

But fire plugs were what we had before hydrants. So would it be a plug that could be unplugged? And am I imagining it correctly as like a big old timey bathtub plug, like wooden or rubber stopper in the ground? Yeah, sometimes metal, sometimes rubber, sometimes a wood lid. Often people would pile dirt on it and then the crew would just know where this hole they made was. Right. How deep did they have to dig? And not very deep. Usually under some pavement, but not very far.

So then they dig. How do they pump it up? Physical pumping machines. That was the situation of this cartoony thing. Okay, so they'd have a pump with them. They'd bring the pump, dig the hole, pump up the water. Would they put it into a hose or buckets? They varied both, yeah. It depended on their equipment. I see. Okay. era to talk about because it's very different technology from us now, as we're saying.

But then also it was a very different social and political approach to firefighting. Today, we use taxes or donations plus volunteers to organize fire brigades for the whole city. Back then in the 1700s, early 1800s, it was private firefighting crews. And then they would get paid by the homeowner or the homeowner's insurance company directly. We are the ones who solved your fire. We get paid by you, which meant that firefighting companies were competing with each other to be the one to fight the fire and get this payment. It also seems like it would incentivize fires happening. Yeah, sure. I think there's a whole global history

of insurance fraud and arson and stuff like that to this day, I guess, still with us. So that's fun. It's true. But it's not usually, the fire department itself is not incentivized

for there to be a lot of fires. That's true. Yeah, yeah. They just hang out in their cool house with their dogs and poles. Yeah. They don't seek it out. They're pole dancing dogs. Yeah. Why did I say it that way? Great at describing Dalmatians and civic services. It's too late. I got the image in my head. I got the image in my head. By the way, key sources for this takeaway are a piece for the Financial Times by Edwin Heathcote and a piece for Atlas Obscura by Dan Nozowitz. And Nozowitz says that the situation of fire plugs, right, where various private crews are digging various forms of access to the water main.

This led to basically gang fights between the firefighting companies. Quote, whoever actually put out the fire would get paid so the departments would have their biggest, toughest guys guard their plugs to stop other companies from tapping their holes. And then this also created a term called plug ugly, which I haven't really heard. But the plug ugly was the big ugly guy who, again, thinking of cartoons, is like a huge bruiser, like a Bluto and Popeye character who just hangs out. I'm your standard plug ugly.

You know, I'm here to guard the hole. You're not getting into this hole. I'm a plug ugly and there's no way you're getting in this hole, buddy. I'm telling you right now, there's no way you're getting into this hole because there's going to be trouble if you try to get into this hole.

This is our hole. Yeah, just like big guys with melee weapons ready to beat each other up over fire plugs. Yeah, goons. The hydrant system. Goons. Such goonage.

Yeah, real goon era. And so before above ground fire hydrants and a change in our civic life, that was how it worked. Fireplugs and combat. Fantastic. Fantastic. The one way this has stuck with us is a lot of countries that are not the U.S. and Canada still have fully underground structures for their hydrants. It's nice. It's modern.

But, for example, in the U.K. But do they got plug uglies? I think they got rid of plug uglies. Damn it. Yeah. In the U.K., those guys have to just, like, be toughs in pubs now or something. I don't know what they do with themselves. It's tough.

You got a license for that plug. Because, yeah, we'll link pictures of UK fire hydrants. Obviously, people there know. But as an American, I was stunned to learn that it's a yellow metal plate in the ground, just totally flat, flush with the ground. And then on the side of the road, there's a sign, a big yellow sign with an H on it to indicate that spot below on the ground is where you can get access to water and use it as a hydrant. So it's still a hydrant. It's just a totally different structure. Many, many countries don't have this U.S.-Canada thing of a sort of tiny, almost person-shaped item with the nuts and then two things on the side. Yeah, they do look like little guys wearing little nipple hats with

little arms. Yeah, a little garden gnome kind of vibe. I like it. Yeah. And it's sort of specific to us. I thought it was global, but it's not. I'm trying to, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned that because like, unless I'm just super unobservant, I don't remember ever seeing a fire hydrant in Italy. I'm sure they have something, but not the little red dudes. Yeah, apparently Europe and Africa in particular are pretty dominated by the below-ground style of fire hydrant. We'll talk later about Austria having above-ground ones. So this topic is a lot of look up your local thing if you, a listener, want super specific color code information

or other design information. Dogs in those countries have to go to the bathroom on Vespas. And then there's a Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes sticker on the back of the Vespa, right? So there's a lot of urine all around. Yeah, his name is Calvino. It's hello, Cal urine all around. Yeah. His name is Calvino. It's L.O. Calvino at Hubs. The European Calvin. Yeah.

And he's just friends with an older version of himself who's completely disillusioned. Folks, just cartoon delight. We are going to take a quick break and then we have tons more to come about fire hydrant colors, cooldowns and cranks. A lot of C words, Alex. Jeez. That's what I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife.

I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Folks, we are back and many numbers to come here. The next are a set of punishments. Punishment numbers. What? Yes. Punishments?

The numbers are up to $1,000 in fines or 30 days imprisonment or a combination of both. Is that if you steal a fire hydrant? Oh, I would love that. That's a very Carmen Sandiego crime to me. I'm sure you can just unscrew it somehow, but it feels impossible, like taking the pyramids, you know? Anyway. Have you ever just tried picking it up? No. How do you know it's so hard? It's like the sword in the stone to me. No one can do it, but maybe one magic person can. Up to 1,000 fines or 30 days imprisonment or both is the official New York City legal punishments if you open a fire hydrant without permission. You know, the classic summer New York City thing. If you do that, the official legal punishment is very strict.

Yeah. I mean, it seems a little harsh. There's a bunch of good news about this, too, because city residents can also do it legally and with city support. But that all brings us to a takeaway about the long-running heritage of that. Takeaway number three. the practice of opening fire hydrants for summer cooling comes from an 1896 heat wave and from a 1989 movie. Hmm. I was born in 1989. And I was born in 88.

So neither of us saw this in theaters. How do you know I didn didn't i came out of the hospital and they were like all right time to go to the movies that's right you were delivered by a doctor at a screening of spike lee's do the right thing that is katie's situation that movie when i was a newborn i remember got popcorn on the umbilical cord. The thing is, there are two key events created this urban practice that I think people have heard of, and I'm pretty sure I learned it from the cultural impact of Do the Right Thing. It's that movie and then a heat wave way back in 1896. movie and then a heat wave way back in 1896. And there's a key person with the heat wave who is Teddy Roosevelt. But then the key person of this movie, Spike Lee, wrote, directed, produced and

starred in Do the Right Thing. I'll link a clip. People don't need to go watch the whole thing. You should. It's good. You should. It's a good movie. Yeah. And there's like iconic scenes in the movie where characters are in a Brooklyn heat wave. They open fire hydrants and use them like a sprinkler or water park kind of situation. Yeah, to cool off. Yeah. And that was like not super known outside of New York City, sort of until that movie came along. That nationally and globally let people know that that's a thing New York City people do and a little bit spread it to other, especially U.S. cities in summer.

Oh, that's interesting. In the first instance, you said that it was due to a heat wave that happened. Was this like a kind of recordting heat wave? Had people not really experienced this before? Yes. Yeah, this story is amazing. And Spike Lee grew up in Brooklyn. He authentically learned this thing that people do to this day. But a lot of the origin of it before that comes from the 1896 summer heat wave in North America. And our weather records are spotty for it, but Atlas Obscura says that we estimate that the heat and the humidity and the lack of breezes and wind added up to a perceived temperature on some days in 1896 reaching 135 degrees Fahrenheit. What? Holy crap. 135. I know world listeners are like, don't tell me the Celsius.

But the Celsius is a little over 57. So that's not okay. That's not a valid temperature to be in. Jeez Louise. I would fight a plug ugly to get inside that wet hole no not gonna call it that get inside that water hole um uh on account of it being so hot to operate its nipples or nuts yes exactly these are normal words and yeah it was it was basically a national disaster the official records show about 1500 deaths in the heat, but it was almost

definitely more people. And the heat was mostly around New York, Newark, New Jersey, Boston, also Chicago, but really the Midwest Northeast got it the most. My God, that sounds not pleasant. Yeah, and it was this situation where you have this unique heat wave. Like maybe that temperature had happened before, but not in a long time. And so you have this unique heat wave combined with a particularly progressive, forceful, creative person being the police commissioner of New York City. Teddy Roosevelt was the police commissioner of New York City in the summer of 1896. Teddy Roosevelt was the police commissioner of New York City in the summer of 1896.

Oh, good old Theodore, Sergeant Theodore, as they call him. I don't know what they call them. He was, within the next five years, he did a speed run of American positions. He fought in Cuba, governor of New York, vice president, president, like all of a sudden. Yeah. But summer of 1896, he is police commissioner in an apocalyptic heat wave. And he comes up with at least three key things to try to mitigate it. The first was free distributions of ice, which especially before electric fridges is huge. Very important.

OK. The second policy was that he suspended the normal bans on sleeping outdoors in city parks. Okay. Yeah. Which saved a bunch of lives. Wait, so why would, I guess sleeping outdoors would actually be protective in this case because the temperature inside might be hotter than it is outside? because the temperature inside might be hotter than it is outside. Exactly. And especially in tenements and in the crummy 1896 buildings in a lot of Manhattan. And then the other way it saved lives is some people in tenements got an outside sleeping spot by sleeping on fire escapes or sleeping on rooftops, and then they would fall off and die.

were sleeping on rooftops and then they would fall off and die. And so so there were there were laws against sleeping in parks as an anti unhoused people thing and as an anti drunkenness thing. But they suspended that because they just needed places for people to be, you know, not in a tenement room with no electric cooling. Right. It was better to just lay outside at that point. And then they never brought it back because we changed our view of homeless people after that. Case solved. The third thing Roosevelt did and the one that lasted is he had the police go around

opening local fire hydrants to hydrate people, to cool people off for free. And the sources are unclear on whether any neighborhoods were doing this before, but having a giant citywide official version in 1896 gave everybody the idea in New York City. Then people said, we should just do this every summer, even when it's not the worst heat wave in the world. So like, this is great. we should just do this every summer, even when it's not the worst heat wave in the world. So this is great. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun.

I mean, it's fun to play in the sprinklers. And if you live in, well, if you're in 1890, you probably don't have sprinklers. But if you're in an urban setting, you also don't have sprinklers because you don't got a yard. So how are you going to play in the sprinklers? Exactly, yeah. And my favorite modern thing about this is that now New York City will give you a purpose-built spray cap for a fire hydrant that almost exactly creates a suburban sprinkler spray. That's fantastic. It's got a row of little holes on it that do kind of that function. So is it legal to use one of those spray caps?

Yeah. So we said there's this like huge legal punishment if you do it without permission. But today in New York City, anyone 18 years or older can go to a firehouse, present photo ID, and receive a free spray cap to borrow and attach to their hydrant. Totally legal. This also solves the two issues with just opening a hydrant. One is that the powerful spray can knock somebody down and injure them. These caps are much more controlled. And then the other is wasted water. One source here is the book, The 99% Invisible City by Kurt Kolstad and Roman Mars and from that amazing podcast. They say that when you open a U.S. fire hydrant, it sprays a minimum of hundreds of gallons of water per minute, usually over a thousand gallons per minute. And then these purpose-built spray caps spray 20 to 25 gallons per minute. It's a massive water savings. And then you still get that

cooling effect and that place to play. Yeah. Yeah. I don't hate it. I like that. I mean, I still feel like the punishment is pretty harsh. But I think that it is nice that there is a legal way to cool down. It might be hard for some people to get like to a fire department. I don't really know what the urban planning situation is, like how easy it is actually to access these, but better than nothing. Yeah, apparently the city's main challenge, according to them, is to just get the word out that this exists. I see. They have a team of PR people, and the acronym for it is a contrived acronym of HEAT, H-E-A-T. But their job is to just be a street team telling people

that you can get one of these and do it. And, you know, it is annoying to have to find your fire station and go get it. And it seems worth it. It seems like the city is trying to collaborate with humans for free, positive cooling in the summer. I'm into it. Use the right fire hydrant nipple or you're going to jail. So amazingly, we have a few more numbers this week, and that's the show.

The next number is about the nipples. Because folks... Yay, the nipples! The next number is an amazing thing about especially that top nipple on a dry barrel hydrant. The number is five. Because it turns out most of those officially nuts, we're calling them nipples, most of those are five-sided. Hmm. So they're five-sided. Hmm. So they're pentagrams.

Interesting. We keep, ever since we did that pentagrams episode, which people can listen to, there's been a bunch of five-sided stuff on shows. And maybe it's just because I'm more aware now, but my brain is full of pentagons. Or maybe it's the devil. Yeah, or I'm the devil. It could be the devil. Yeah, or I'm the devil. It could be the devil. This is a design choice where a lot of U.S. and Canadian hydrants, the nuts and nipples that you operate, a lot of departments and cities have made those five-sided in an attempt to prevent people from opening fire hydrants without being firefighters. And they'll also do a lot of the screw threading the opposite unintuitive way,

where it tightens to the left. And, you know, these deterrents are pretty easy to figure out once you just learn what's going on. But there's a bunch of fire departments and firemen out there with special five-sided tools because departments don't want people to pop open the hydrants without permission. Right. So like a standard wrench ain't going to do it for you. on their own. So they find a workaround or they find a different kind of plumbing wrench that still opens it. But theoretically, the five sides are hard for most hardware store civilian equipment. That's the idea. And so if you go look at a hydrant, you might see five-sided elements on it as this deterrent to basically prevent the movie do the right thing concept from happening. Seems sad because, you know, the huge hydrant spray is quite spectacular and cool.

If people keep doing this, it seems like they should just put some more fountains around like that people can play in. Yeah, access to water. How about that? Hey, that would can play in. Yeah, access to water. How about that? Hey, yeah. That would just be nice. And speaking of making things nice, the next number is 2016, the year 2016. That is the year when a Canadian town told a local artist to stop painting town fire hydrants to look like Dalmatians.

Pfft. It's an unknown person. They're not named in the CBC story, but a resident of Paradise in the greater St. John's area of Newfoundland, they painted Dalmatian faces and fur patterns on some hydrants near them. And then the St. John's Fire Department intervened, repainted them the previous colors. Because it turns out most cities and towns color code the paint on fire hydrants to indicate the water pressure level.

It's like actually useful. So what does Dalmatian stand for in terms of water pressure? 101, probably. Probably. Yeah, and this is also a thing that we can't really inform you about with your city specifically, wherever you are. Because it also turns out there are national guidelines for which colors mean which water pressures. But they are a total patchwork. And my favorite example of how hyperlocal it gets is that CBS Minnesota covered this. They said that there's different coloring between the fire hydrants in St. Paul, Minnesota's west side and St. Paul, Minnesota's south side.

It gets this weird between places. And you just kind of count on your fire department to know what's going on in your area. I mean, that seems super efficient and great to me. There's a national guideline where red is lower pressure and then orange is higher, green is higher, blue is higher. So the caps can mean that. And also some places the body of the hydrant can be yellow or red, depending on whether it's public or private water sources. So the bodies and the caps all mean various things, various places. Last number of the show, also 2016. This was a big year for fire hydrant paint vandalism.

Because that's the year... Nothing else happened that year. Right. Otherwise, pork. And that's the year when local police in austria began looking for a vandal that they nicknamed goldfinger because somebody just did a rash of overnight painting entire fire hydrants gold uh all over the this is in austria the town of kloster neuburg where they have above-ground hydrants. And somebody was doing this.

Oh, okay. So they were painting them gold. Was it real gold or some kind of just gold paint? Just gold paint. I wish it was actually Midas stuff. That would be great. Yeah. A very rich vandal.

Yeah, and there was no follow-up reporting on them getting caught. So we salute Austrian fire hydrant Goldfinger. Great job. Keep it up, I guess. But maybe not. It seems not good. They just wanted to zhuzh up the city, you know, give it a little razzmatazz. Elevate the humble fire hydrant.

Yeah, you know, it's not all sound and music stuff and old stuff in Austria. Elevate the humble fire hydrant. Yeah, you know, it's not all sound of music stuff and old stuff in Austria. It's also Vegas style hydrants, right? Right. It's modern. It's wild. Just throw some sequins on a hydrant and you got yourself a disco hydrant. folks that's the main episode for this week welcome to the outro with fun features for you such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, the first U.S. patent for a modern-style fire hydrant got lost in a fire. Takeaway number two, the first fire hydrants were holes in the ground, fought over in firefighting gang turf wars. Takeaway number three, the practice of popping open fire hydrants in hot summers,

comes from an 1896 heat wave and a 1989 movie. And then a ton of numbers and stats this week about fire hydrant paint colors, pentagons, punishments, and so much more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode, because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members get a bonus show every week

where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is Mrs. O'Leary's fire hydrant. She did not just have a cow. Visit sifod.fund for that bonus show, for a library of more than 13 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows. It's special audio, it's just for members. Thank you for being somebody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include the Aquincum Archaeological Museum in

Budapest, Hungary, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and digital writing for Popular Mechanics, Atlas Obscura, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and more. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. This week, I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people, as well as the Mohican people, the Skadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy. I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. I'm also going to be expanding and improving this section for my new location as I learn new things.

That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join the Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 138. That is about the topic of ducks. Fun fact,

North America's ducks gather and breed based on the past movements of glaciers. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals and science and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra special thanks this week to the Beacon AV Lab for taping support and more. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members. And thank you to all our listeners.

I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you