With the temperature rising around the District this week, surely some may be tempted to go old school and crack open one of the city's fire hydrants in search of some refreshment. But the city is getting an early start on reminding residents that they would really prefer it if you let the hydrants be. This morning, we got the usual reminder from the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department and DC Water that resident residents who tamper with the city's hydrants are potentially to blame when firefighters are unable to find a working water supply. more ›

Find out! DC WASA has developed a Google Earth-based fire hydrants file for the whole city, showing where in- and out-of-service hydrants are. Their web site has the Google Earth KMZ file, as well as a help document on how to use it (basically, just add it to Google Earth). The pink dots are the non-working hydrants and the purple ones are the working ones. It's kind of busy, with hydrant number labels all over the place, but hey, it's available. more ›