Friday, October 05, 2007

fire hydrants

Over the past couple of days I reviewed three different caches (submitted by two different geocachers) that were magnetic key holders stuck to fire hydrants. My initial thought was that this is not a good idea because hydrants are part of the local fire departments' emergency equipment. To see if Groundspeak has an official position on this, I posted a note in the reviewers' forum and asked, and the response from Groundspeak confirmed my suspicion that fire hydrant caches are not allowed. This is not to say that you won't find some out there. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I have approved some myself without knowing they were on fire hydrants. But, as the guidelines clearly state:
There is no precedent for placing caches. This means that the past listing of a similar cache in and of itself is not a valid justification for the listing of a new cache.

Other reviewers cited examples of geocachers who tried to unscrew caps from hydrants in their zeal to find a hidden cache. And it is, of course, illegal to tamper with fire hydrants, just as it is to tamper with U.S. Postal Service mail boxes.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm gonna move to Iowa for my caching 'cause you guys seem to be on top of things out that way! Thanks for denying poorly thought out caches such as fire hydrants.

My biggest pet peeve, aside from "rock pile micro's" are those on or very near electrical boxes. Too much possibility of a problem and poor teaching in that the next time a cacher is searching for a micro near a box, they might search it in a different and perhaps more dangerous location.

PittCaleb
1,691 finds, 35 Iowa finds

IowaAdmin said...

Thanks, PittCaleb. I like the way you think. :) Regarding electrical equipment, see:
http://iowaadmin.blogspot.com/
search/label/electric

Secured Engineers said...

This post is very useful. Thanks for sharing it.
Fire Alarm System Suppliers in India
Fire Hydrant Pumps Suppliers in Punjab
CCTV Camera Dealers in punjab