§ 93.002.Dry Fire Hydrants: Affirmative Defense

A narrow defence encouraging one act of rural cooperation.

A "dry fire hydrant" is a hydrant connected to a stock tank, pond, or other similar source of water from which water is pumped in case of fire. A "fire-fighting agency" includes a volunteer fire department and any political subdivision authorized to provide fire-fighting services.

It is an affirmative defence for an owner, lessee, or occupant who permits a fire-fighting agency to connect a dry fire hydrant to a water source on the property, or to install one there, that the damages arise from: the condition or use of the hydrant; its installation or maintenance; or the failure of the water source to contain an adequate supply of water during a fire.

Rural areas have no water mains, and a farm pond may be the only supply within miles. A landowner asked to let the volunteer fire department install a hydrant gains nothing personally and, without this section, takes on liability for a firefighting failure they had no part in.

The third branch is the significant one. A pond low in a dry summer is not the landowner's doing, and the defence covers the case where the water was not there.

Two exclusions. The defence does not apply to damages arising from the owner's own conduct that is intentional, wilfully or wantonly negligent, or done with conscious indifference or reckless disregard; nor to damages arising from a condition of the real property on which the hydrant is located.

The second keeps the defence to the hydrant. An ordinary premises hazard remains an ordinary premises claim.