A vehicle hit a Manteca fire hydrant on Tuesday.

It’s not all that uncommon.

It happens, on average, 24 to 30 times a year according to George Montross who serves as the City of Manteca’s Director of Utilities.

What was unusual was where it happened.

The vehicle took out a fire hydrant directly in front of the Manteca Fire Department’s headquarters station.

“It got better last year but we’re back up again this year,” Montross said of the city’s loss of fire hydrants to car crashes.

The driver gets a sizable bill on top of the damage they do to their vehicle.

The replacement hydrants cost $3,000 apiece.

The driver, or their insurance company gets billed, for the labor to install a new hydrant.

They also are billed for the water loss.

On Tuesday, it was only 40,000 gallons or the equivalent daily per capita use of 307 Manteca residents.

That’s because it was a short trip for the engine company.

Firefighters are typically dispatched to turn the cutoff valve off, which isn’t an easy task. It requires full turnout gear given wind conditions and such can pummel firefighters with a massive drenching.

Sometimes there can be issues with the cutoff valve.

Back in the mid-2000s there was a fire hydrant that was sheared near Woodward Avenue and Union Road that took close to an hour to stop water from flowing. The result was a heavily flooded roadway.

Montross said roughly a third of the fire hydrants that are damaged are the result of trucks with semi-trailers navigating driveways when the driver misjudges the turn clearance.

“The trucks are so big, I’m not too sure sometime (the drivers” even) know they’ve got a hydrant,” Montross said.

The city tries to keep two pallets of fire hydrants on hand at least time.

After the incident on Tuesday, the city is down to 10 spare fire hydrants.

There are more than 3,000 fire hydrants citywide that are kept track of by the fire department and public works crews.

The labor to address maintenance issues or replacement hydrants is done by the public works department.

The city this summer has been conducting test flows to measure hydrant water pressure.

High water pressure is critical not just for mornings when everyone in Manteca seems to be taking a shower as well as half the city watering their lawns, but also to effectively combat fires.

The testing this year helps make the traditional fire hose cart drenching at the end of the Fourth of July parade a somewhat easier undertaking for the reserve firefighters and Fire Explorers assigned the task.

The testing meant fire hydrants along the parade route has been flushed of any dirt water meaning firefighters won’t have to open and the shut them quickly to flush out any accumulation.

That assures kids — and those young at heart — that take to the streets at the end of the parade will be assure of good clean fun.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com