Adopt a Hydrant Program

Adopt a Hydrant Basic Guidelines

The City of Russell utilizes fire hydrants to help with fire suppression tactics throughout the city of Russell. It is crucial that fire hydrants are maintained and kept clean from all debris, weeds, and even snow during the winter months. Russell citizens can now assist in helping maintain hydrants while allowing citizens to be creative with hydrants around the city.

 How it works?

All fire hydrants within the City of Russell will be available to be adopted. Families, civic organizations, or individuals can fill out a form to adopt a fire hydrant throughout the city. Approval of design and ability to paint and adopt the hydrant will be provided by the Fire Department. In the event that an individual wants to paint another individual’s hydrant on their property, the property owner will fill out the request with the same information of what will be painted on the hydrant.

What are my Responsibilities?

• Weed-eat around the fire hydrant weekly or as needed
• Keep a 3-foot radius around the fire hydrant clear of snow, weeds, and any other debris that may block firefighters view of the hydrant
• Paint the hydrant annually or as needed. Paint colors and designs must be approved by the Fire Chief before painting
• Person painting the hydrant are responsible for the brushes and paint when not painting the barrel of the hydrant red
• Person painting the hydrant will not paint the bonnet or top of the hydrant, this is the responsibility of the fire department to correctly identify flow rates on hydrants.
• No political advertisements, nudity, suggestive or foul language will be allowed. 

What is the Fire Department’s responsibilities?

The fire department will still oversee testing the fire hydrants annually to ensure proper function. The fire department will still be responsible for painting the bonnets (tops) of the hydrants to ensure proper identification of flow coming from that hydrant. If someone simply wants to paint the hydrant red (standard color for barrels of the hydrant) then the department will provide safety red paint and also paintbrushes. If a hydrant is not adopted, the fire department will continue to maintain that hydrant. 

If you want to design a hydrant, please fill out the form and on the back of the form include either a description or drawing of how you would like to design your hydrant.

If you have any questions, please call Chief Riedel at 785-483-7129. 

Adopt A Hydrant Form