Montville - For the second time in about three weeks, a fire has devastated buildings in an area of town where although hydrants were within reach of the scene, they were not equipped to suppress a blaze.

This is because the hydrants - traditional in appearance and seemingly waiting for a firefighter to connect a hose to its nozzle in an emergency - were not built for that purpose, according to an official with the Southeastern Connecticut Water Authority, the private entity that now owns the hydrants.

On Aug. 14 a fire on Park Avenue Extension ravaged a single-family home. Early Tuesday morning, a fire at the Oakdale Plaza destroyed multiple businesses, some of which had been central to the Montville Manor neighborhood community for decades.

In both cases, hydrants owned by the authority were within reach but were built to enable the authority to "flush" or clean the privately owned residential potable water system - not to be used as a primary source of fire suppression.

Though fire officials and emergency dispatch personnel had known this for years, many residents of the neighborhoods were flummoxed by the revelation.

In response to the Park Avenue Extension fire, about 150 people gathered at the Mohegan fire house in late August to hear from water and fire officials about what happened that night.

At the meeting, Gregory Leonard, general manger of the SCWA, told the residents that the hydrants in the neighborhood behind the fire house in the Mohegan section of town were not capable of providing such coverage.

Hydrants owned by the authority elsewhere, including Montville Manor and Oakdale Heights, fall into the same category, he said. In order to provide the necessary amount of water, the systems have to be "super-sized." The systems owned by SCWA meet federal and state requirements to provide drinking water only.

Leonard said insurance agencies judge coverage and discounts based not only on whether there is a hydrant nearby, but by that hydrant's capacity and capability.

After the Park Avenue Extension fire, Mayor Joseph Jaskiewicz asked SCWA to mark its hydrants so the general public would know they are not meant for firefighting purposes.

On Tuesday, Leonard said the authority is in the process of tagging each hydrant with a ring that reads "out of service," mainly for the public's knowledge, and will send more information out with the annual report next June.

He said the authority has several other similar hydrants, including Hillcrest, the Black Ash Road area and near the high school, but those hydrants do not look like traditional red fire hydrants. Instead, they are 2½-inch diameter pipes that have a hook at the top and a cap at the end where a hose could be attached. To replace the traditional looking hydrants in the Montville Manor and Mohegan areas, it could cost up to $3,000 to $5,000 apiece.

The system in place in Montville Manor in the Oakdale section of town was built in the late 1950s. SCWA took over the private system in 1976 after it had been mismanaged, Leonard said. To upgrade the system further to provide sufficient fire protection it could require at least a roughly $1 million gravity tank and possibly millions of more dollars worth of infrastructure upgrades.

Leonard said this would not be the responsibility of the SCWA water customers, but if that is the preferred method of firefighting it would be a publicly-funded project through the town.

m.bard@theday.com