SUMMERDALE, Ala. (WKRG) — A new look for fire hydrants in Summerdale. Blue reflectors hang from almost everyone in the Summerdale Volunteer Fire Departments’ jurisdiction.

“The main purpose whenever you are driving around at night and you have a house fire looking for a hydrant isn’t always ideal so it does make it a little more visible to us,” says Lt. Carrie Smith.

Those reflectors sure would have helped back in January when fire destroyed a home on 7th Street.

“We had one down in a ditch in a fully involved structure fire,” says Smith. “We just really couldn’t look for it, down in a ditch covered with brush. We were very lucky that our mutual aid got there pretty fast.”

The reflectors are just the beginning of what will be a color-coded hydrant system and all of them are geo-located through Baldwin County 911.

“It will show us our four closest hydrants, if they are operational, not operational,” says Smith. “When we get our coding done based on our flow testing it can also reflect what our gallons per minute we can get.”

A quicker way to get water where it needs to be the next time tragedy strikes.