Is my water safe to drink after a fire?
With the fires in our region, many of our customers call and ask if their water is safe to drink/use. This is an excellent question and observation because of the ash in the air that can settle into water supplies and the fire retardants dropped from aircraft that may be close to water supplies. There are many factors that go into answering this questions properly that this blog is designed to help people understand the process of determining if your water is safe to drink.
Where does your water come from? Your own well or spring supply or from the city water supply?
If your water comes from a city water supply, it is their specific duty to monitor and notify the customers of potential threats to the availability and safety of the water to drink. If you are in the middle of a fire event, they may be overwhelmed with customers contacting them by phone, so check their website if they have one. If you are unable to contact them and have concerns, it is a good idea to have & use your stash of bottled drinking water for cooking needs.
If your water supply comes from a well or spring located near your home, you are your own water supplier! It is time to ask yourself a few questions:
Was fire retardant dropped on your well or spring?
If fire retardant was dropped on your well or spring, is it possible that any of it actually entered the well casing or spring box (are there any openings)? Is it possible that future rain could wash some of the fire retardant into your well or spring? If so, the best plan is to remove the fire retardant and flush the well or spring throughly before consumption of the water.
Was the well or spring area burned over by active fire?
An active fire can completely destroy and melt a well “head” that sticks above the ground, the piping, or even electrical wires supplying the well. Fires can completely burn/destroy a spring box. This level of damage would, in most cases, make them inoperable. OPS has worked with many clients with these problems and can frequently make repairs in a few days time. Part of the repair process is flushing the well/spring of the burn debris. If the well and spring equipment still works, but it is obvious that fire was near it and scorched some plastic pipe, conduit, or other equipment, you’ll want to flush the water to ensure any chemicals released by heating the plastic have been removed. You’ll also want to get the damaged components checked out and repaired as they could lead to future problems.
Does the water have any unusual colors or smells?
If the water is coming out of the faucet and it is different in appearance, taste or smell, then you should not be drinking it, bathing in it would be questionable and flushing toilets would probably be fine. If you encounter this problem, flush the water at several outside hoses and monitor to see if the appearance/odor return to normal, then flush all the sinks, faucets and showers in the home to remove the contaminated water.
Fire Retardant Safety
Many people have concerns about the fire retardant dropped to help fight the fires. While it is generally considered non-toxic and biodegradable, it is also not supposed to be dropped within 300 feet of rivers/lakes and there are concerns about firefighters that come into close contact with it over prolonged periods of time. Please check out the Wikipedia article on Fire Retardants to get more information. If you know or suspect that your water supply was contaminated with fire retardant, the water supply should be cleaned and flushed. This cleaning and flushing should include all wells, springs, storage tanks, and piping. The final step would be to test the water supply and verify that it is clean before drinking the water.
Our crew members at OPS know the devastation that a forest fire can cause and have helped many of our customers rebuild and repair in the aftermath. We also help our clients get the right water testing to ensure that their water supply is safe to drink. For more information on our water testing services please check out our water sampling and testing page. If you are rebuilding after a fire, please check out our blog written to help you through this grueling process.
If there are questions you’d like our blog to address, please contact us and we will try to address them for you in future blogs.