Fire Ponds
Many fire ponds were constructed during the Great Depression to provide a ready source of water to fight fires.
Created to ease the financial strains of the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, employed over 3,000,000 young men* between 1933-1942. The 21 camps in Connecticut provided barrack-style food and housing along with a small monthly stiped. The men worked o a variety of conservation projects including forest road construction, recreation area development and fire suppression.
A system of fire ponds, each holding a minimum of 7500 gallons of water, served as the main water source for fire suppression in the state forests. This particular fire pond was probably built by enrollees from Camp Connor in Stafford Springs circa 1936. The goal of building one pond per 100 acres on state land and one pond per 200 acres on private land was curtailed by the onset of WWII and the closing of the CCC camps. By 1941, the CCC had completed 404 water holes in the 80,000 acres of state forest and 269 holes on private land.
This fire pond, restored to the original conditionin 2001, illustrates one of several designs utilized by the CCC.
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Many unrestored fire ponds can discovered along forest roads throughout Shenipsit and Nipmuck State Forest.
From this sign:
Sign at the Mountain Laurel Sanctuary, Nipmuck State Forest, Union, CT
This is the pond it refers to:
Fire pond at Mountain Laurel Sanctuary, Nipmuck State Forest, Union, CT
This is another style of pond:
Fire Pond in Natchaug State Forest, Hampton, CT
My observation is these ponds would have been most useful during the spring fire season, filled by snow melt and spring rains. In a normal summer today these are dry by mid-summer, and thus not available in the summer and fall fire seasons during a drought. I doubt this would have been any different seventy years ago.
They would have been useful for filling Indian tanks, as well as portable pumps and hose.
Today forestry agencies around the U.S. continue to improve rural water supplies, often under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Service’s Rural Community Fire Protection cooperative program they administer.
RI Rural Community Fire Protection Program
RC&D [Resource Conservation & Development] partnered with the DEM- Division of Forest Environment to provide rural communities with fire protection assistance. In 2006 RC&D designed, produced, and
distributed 200 Dry Hydrant Guidance Manuals to local fire departments, held four workshops across the state on the program and received 19 applications for dry hydrants from six rural fire departments. When installed these hydrants will improve fire protection for an estimated 13,000 residents of these communities.Rhode Island Resource Conservation & Development 2006 Annual Report
These static water supplies are considerably larger then the old hand dug fire ponds of the CCC, designed to support both wildland and structural fire protection. This is a representative dry hydrant installation:
[Photo of the Hampton hydrant will go here, once I find it...]
There is a couple ways to estimate coverage for the old water holes.
One is we can assume a square grid with perfectly even distribution. 100 acres would be approximately 2,000 feet square. From the center of that square to a side would be 1,000′ while reaching a corner would take 1,400′.
Another is to use a circle centered on the water hole. A circle 1,200′ in radius would cover approximately 100 acres, while a circle 1,650′ in radius would cover approximately 200′ acres.
* For perspective, the U.S. population in 1940 was 134 Million, of which 5.6 Million were males between the age of 20 and 24. A proportionately sized program today would employ some 7 Million men, with about 2 Million in active service at any given time.
