CM Ariola to Introduce Legislation to Crack Down on Hydrant Blockers

By Katie McFadden

On Sunday, February 15, an 83-year-old man died in a fire in Elmhurst where rescue efforts were delayed due to a car blocking a hydrant in front of the apartment building. The week prior, a 37-year-old father and U.S. Navy veteran died in a fire in Bay Ridge, where the two closest hydrants were both blocked by vehicles. Two days after that, two died in a fire in the Bronx where the hydrant outside of the building was blocked by a vehicle. Three incidents in just the past week across the city. A blocked hydrant is a familiar site on a nice summer day around Rockaway as parking becomes a hot commodity. And as blocked hydrant complaints increase throughout District 32, Councilwoman Joann Ariola isn’t wasting time on trying to pass legislation to deter drivers from even thinking about parking on a hydrant.

In a bipartisan effort, Republican Councilwoman Ariola, chair of the Committee on Fire and Emergency Management, and Crystal Hudson, a Democrat councilwoman in Brooklyn who serves as chair of the Committee on General Welfare, are teaming up to write and introduce legislation that would aim to protect all New Yorkers by issuing harsher penalties for those who disregard the current law of not parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant.

The effort comes after the increasing number of fire fatalities in which rescue efforts were impacted by blocked hydrants, and an increase in reports of blocked hydrants across the city.

“We have received a number of calls in our district offices about fire hydrants being blocked. We have NYPD precincts that go out and ticket and tow, but the amount of 311 calls across the city have risen exponentially,” Councilwoman Ariola said. According to the NY Post, just in 2025, there was a 23.4% increase in blocked hydrant reports made, from 134,000 the year before to 165,466. It was the same year that the FDNY issued the first ever criminal summons to an owner of a vehicle parked on a hydrant in the Bronx, outside of a building where two people were killed in a fire. The penalty for those summonses comes with a fine of $2,500 to $4,000 and a day in court. The FDNY has issued 10 such summonses so far. But with three fatal incidents just in the last week, it’s become clear that more can be done.

So Ariola and Hudson are working on four pieces of legislation to address the issue. “The first piece would increase fines and make the person who is responsible held liable for criminal negligence if the fire results in an injury or death. Right now, the FDNY can write a criminal summons, but it has to go to a judge for a hearing. This would cut the red tape for that,” Councilwoman Ariola said.

“Additionally, we would like to see the blocked hydrant summonses increase from $115 to $1,000, which I think would give pause to anyone thinking about parking at a hydrant. At $115, they may consider that the cost of doing business and not being able to park somewhere, but $1,000 is a very big fine, and many may think twice about it,” she said.

A third piece would be to ensure the NYC Department of Transportation “puts clear markings on 15 feet on each side of a hydrant so drivers know they cannot park there. Hydrants need to be free for a fire engine to pull up and for firefighters to access them in an emergency,” Councilwoman Ariola said.

Lastly, would be a “piece of legislation that would allow firefighters to have a scanner like traffic agents so they can give a ticket easily to a car parked at a hydrant,” Councilwoman Ariola said. “Right now, they have the ability to ticket, but they’re still using paper tickets, which are time consuming and not being utilized often. We want to make it as easy as possible, so all of these pieces of legislation would make it easily possible to lead to a criminal charge, be fined an amount that is appropriate for the infraction, give some clear signage so drivers cannot say they didn’t know they shouldn’t park there, and give firefighters the ability to scan and give tickets more readily.”

The pieces of legislation are still in the process of being written, but Councilwoman Ariola hopes to introduce them during the next legislative session, and she’s confident they would pass. “They’ll be introduced, heard and passed in this session. This is something everyone agrees on. Before more people die and firefighters get hurt, let’s get fires contained more quickly because firefighters won’t have to take time to break through car windows to attach their line to a hydrant and bring it to a fire. When going in to fight a fire or rescue someone, seconds could mean the difference between life and death,” Councilwoman Ariola said. “Right now, things can only happen after something tragic happens. These pieces of legislation are proactive, and that’s what is so important.”