CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – The deadline for municipalities and water districts to test their fire hydrants throughout West Virginia is now up. They had until 5 p.m. this evening, Friday, Aug. 25, to complete the task.  

This is all part of the Public Service Commission’s order to replace and fix any fire hydrants that are not working properly after one home in the Edgewood neighborhood of Charleston was destroyed in May because local fire hydrants weren’t working. This investigation hits pretty close to home for Edgewood neighborhood residents who witnessed their neighbor’s home burn to the ground.

The Edgewood neighborhood has received new fire hydrants since the former ones failed during the house fire, but this incident was scarring for the community.

Following this incident, the PSC ordered that 301 utilities would check fire hydrants throughout the state to prevent similar incidents by the original June 30 deadline.

However, only half of the 301 utilities responded to the original PSC’s deadline.  

Any utility who did not test fire hydrants in their region by the new deadline, August 25, could face serious consequences, according to the commission.

Some of the information the PSC is searching for includes how many fire hydrants are owned or serviced by a utility, maintenance schedules, how old the hydrants are and more.

The Public Service Commission is not commenting on their hydrant investigation at this time, but they will be finalizing all collected information from the utilities who were supposed to send in their fire hydrant testing by Friday at 5 p.m. within the coming days.