All across the country right now, there are fire hydrants that do not work, putting homes and lives at risk. So do the fire hydrants in Spokane work?
Spokane and Spokane Valley have very different systems for keeping track.
It is an almost every day occurrence for the Spokane Valley Fire Department in the spring.
"What we do at every hydrant is, minimum, check the pressure," firefighter Rick Freier said.
Fire hydrant testing for all 5,347 hydrants in the city.
"What we're doing here is making sure the valves are opening under the street. As the water flows, we're going to check the pressure again," Freier said.
"Once we find out if it drains or not, we'll put the caps back on and then we'll go to the next one," Freir said.
It may be time-consuming, but firefighters said it is one of the most important jobs they do.
"If a hydrant's identified as 'out of service,' our computer maps show it. And even if we have one that's not working, we know about it when we're responding to a scene," Freier said.
"So, it's highly-unlikely that there's going to be a raging fire, and you're going to roll up to a hydrant that doesn't work?"