Preparing for Major Incidents: Greenport Water Drill Lays Groundwork for 800+ GPM Operations

Greenport, NY - Firefighters from the Greenport Fire Department joined regional mutual aid partners along Middle Road on Sunday, successfully conducting a full-scale rural water delivery drill that surpassed targeted sustained flow benchmarks.

On August 30, 2026, emergency crews assembled in the vicinity of the Griffen Apartments corridor to evaluate the operational capacity of a coordinated non-hydrant water relay. The exercise set a primary operational objective of sustaining an uninterrupted discharge rate of at least 600 gallons per minute (GPM) utilizing a continuous rotation of six mobile water tankers discharging into two portable dump ponds.

Crews not only met the designated standard but exceeded it, successfully recording a continuous suppression flow of approximately 650 GPM throughout the duration of the operational test.

Beyond validating current apparatus flow capabilities and driver-operator pump hydraulics, the evolution provided commanding officers and operational teams with concrete tactical data on the additional supply lines, apparatus spacing, and draft-site configurations necessary to scale fireground flows up to 800 GPM or higher during large-scale commercial or multi-family structural emergencies in non-hydrant sectors of Columbia County.