City of Washington issued the following announcement on May 12.
The City of Washington Public Works Department is nearing completion of painting the 708 fire hydrants in its water system. It had been several years since all of the hydrants had been painted, and the paint scheme at that time, silver and yellow, didn’t correspond with current industry standards for identifying fire flow.
The colors on fire hydrants identify how much water can flow from that hydrant. This is important when Firefighters respond to a fire and connect to hydrants as it tells them how much water they have available to pull from that hydrant. This is based not necessarily on the hydrant itself, but by the size of the pipe underground supplying the water to that hydrant.
The Public Works Department teamed up with the City’s Fire and Rescue Department and decided to go with a standard red hydrant with a reflective colored band to identify the available fire flow. The project included sandblasting the hydrants down to bare metal, priming, then 2 finish coats of UV resistant red paint. After curing, staff will install a color reflective band on the hydrant.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Washington