When firefighters pulled up to a house fire in the 60 block of Sheron Street along the shores of Lake Orion on Friday they had a game plan.
They jumped out of the trucks and immediately started dousing the flames coming from the attic using the water they had on the truck. Fewer than 20-feet from the driveway was a fire hydrant but when firefighters opened it to supply their trucks and hoses, they had no pressure.
The incident was quickly upgraded to a second alarm and departments from Oakland, Oxford, Addison and Independence began sending large fire truck tankers with thousands of gallons of water aboard.
The tankers took the place of the fire hydrant by dumping water into a reserve tank and supplying the firefighters. But because of the narrow streets on Central drive, the tankers became congested.
"The whole neighborhood has very narrow streets that make getting the large equipment in and out very difficult and once you get down to where the house was there is not easy way to turn around," Orion Fire Chief Robert Smith said. "Command had called for surrounding departments early on for tanker shuttles but again with the location it made it very difficult to haul water in."