OsmHydrant Lookup fire stations & fire hydrants

Types of fire-fighting facilities

The following types of fire-fighting facilities are shown in OsmHydrant:

• Fire hydrant emergency=fire_hydrant

  This includes types ranging from pillars, underground, wall and fixed connectors at ponds.

• Suction place emergency=suction_point

  This is a preferred or specially prepared point to pump water off a river or pond/lake. If it would contain a fixed connector (suction tube) then the fire hydrant type should be used.

• Water tank emergency=water_tank

  A large water basin for a fire department to take water.

• Fire water pond emergency=fire_water_pond

  While they are shown in OsmHydrant with the symbol , they cannot be edited. If you want to map fire water ponds you can do this via the OpenStreetMap website.

Helpers

The following features support you when using OsmHydrant:

• On the left side of the map, the following buttons may be of interest to you:
  • allows you to take measurements in meter.
  • tries to detect your current location and shows it in the map.
  • toggles the left sidebar, containing either the quick help tab or a form.
• In the middle on the top you can use the search-bar to find locations. Just enter village or street names. On the right side there are more buttons:
  • allows you to customize the map's view.
  • The number beside the fire hydrant symbol stands for the number of fire-fighting facilities loaded so far. This includes fire hydrants, suction points, water tanks & fire water ponds. The number beside the fire brigade symbol stands for the number of fire brigades loaded so far.
  • toggles the right sidebar. It contains a list of all fire-fighting facilities.
  • removes all symbols from the map. Then the symbols are loaded for the current view. It is meant to speed up processing when a lot of objects were loaded.
• On the bottom of the map you can find a link entitled as Permalink. When you click this link you get a unique URL that points to the currently shown map. You can use these links for bookmarks or share them to other people.

Requirements (for editing)

• Modern Browser

  We recommend an up-to-date browser to get the best experience with OsmHydrant.

• OpenStreetMap Account

  If you want to use OsmHydrant to add & edit fire-fighting facilities, you need an OpenStreetMap account. However, the registration at OpenStreetMap is free of charge.

• OpenStreetMap Login

  Before each session, where you are going to add fire-fighting facilities or edit existing ones, you need to login into your OpenStreetMap account and allow OsmHydrant edit the map in your name. To start you session click onto OAuth/Login.

Tips for editing mode

• Edit fire-fighting facilities

  After a successful login, you can start to edit fire-fighting facilities by selecting them in the map or in the list.

  All fields in the edit form are optional and you should only fill them out, if you are certain about the values set. A description on various fields is shown in the OpenStreetMap-Wiki.

  • Fire Hydrants
  • Sunction Points
  • Water Tanks
• Add fire-fighting facilities

  After a successful login, you can add for example hydrants by clicking the hydrant-symbol in the left toolbar. A new hydrant is placed in the middle of the map. Now you can set the position via your pointing device or finger on mobile devices. To ease positioning you can use another base-layer. You can switch to the satellite view via the layers-symbol in the map.
  You can either move the colored cross-hair shown on the map or move the map while the cross-hair stays at its position.

  The fields Coupling Type and Couplings aim to specify the access pins of a hydrant. When using type Storz, the value 1A/1B/2C means that the hydrant has got 4 connectors:

  • 1 x Storz-Coupling A (110mm diameter)
  • 1 x Storz-Coupling B (75mm diameter)
  • 2 x Storz-Coupling C (52mm diameter)

  
  

  While Storz couplings are used by many countries in the world, the characters (A,B,C,D) are just common in German-speaking areas. Alternatively we'd suggest using for example 1x110/1x75/2x52 for the field couplings.

  Other coupling types are Guillemin (France & Belgium), Gost (Russia), Instantaneous (Great Britain), Barcelona (Spain), UNI (Italy), ...

Limitations

The following problems cannot be solved with OsmHydrant and may limit its usage:

• Actuality

  Existing fire-fighting facilities are queried from Overpass. Their data is not live. As a result it may take a while, until newly added hydrants are added to this map (usually after 20 minutes, always within 1 hour).

• Performance

  The maps are dynamically created. The objects on the map are queried from foreign servers. As a result there may be longer loading times. If you want a view-only map, I suggest the OpenFireMap.

• Functionality

  Features are added one after another. In case you miss some key functionality, you can contact me.

• Verification

  There is no guarantee that every fire hydrant in the OpenStreetMap does really exist. Basically a user could add wrong data. As a result use this data with care. I don't suggest relying on the positions of fire-fighting facilities. Instead, use this tool to map all fire-fighting facilities and then print them out. Using paper in the case of emergency is always more reliable than for example smartphones.
  Another reason for wrong data may be removed hydrants. In both cases (abuse and structural alteration), the OpenStreetMap community will eventually fix wrong data. Either a user adding wrong data is identified, blocked and all his changes are reverted or some other member corrects the data.