What Is The Augusta Fire Department Doing At The Kennebec River?

If you have driven through downtown Augusta, or over Memorial Bridge, today, you may have noticed the Augusta Fire Department has fire trucks on the east side of the Kennebec River.  The trucks are using fire hoses to shoot water up in the air.

One of our coworkers, Dawn, was nice enough to take pictures and video of what was going on.

Honestly, I thought maybe they were washing the bridge.  Can you think of a better way to power wash a bridge than with a fire hose?  Exactly!

Looks like my guess could not have been farther from the truth.

We reached out to Augusta Fire Department Chief Dave Groder and he explained that the department was in the process of testing the pumping power of their fire engines.

Each of the Augusta Fire Department fire engines shoot water at either 1,500 gallons per minute or 1,750 gallons per minute.  In this annual test, they must be able to achieve 75% of that maximum flow rate.

If you want to see it for yourself, the test is expected to continue until about 4 o'clock this afternoon (September 8th).

Check out video of the action:

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