Stolen metal is a problem

BURBANK — The rising value of scrap metal has made fire hydrants a prime target for thieves who strip them and sell the materials for profit.

Since the spring, Burbank and Glendale officials said they have seen a sharp increase in stolen metal caps from city hydrants, which are cast in solid bronze.

"It's the phenomena of $3-a-pound scrap," Burbank Water and Power General Manager Ron Davis said. "The scrap value of metals with the recent building boom in the last three years throughout the planet — mostly China — have driven metal prices nuts. We now sell scrap steel, for instance, for more than we paid for new steel five years ago."

Caps from fire hydrants are the most common targets of metal thieves, who pry off the caps with a wrench or other tool, netting between $5 and $10 per hydrant, Davis said.

Glendale and Burbank officials report having hundreds of caps stolen this year. Since April, Burbank has recorded 213 caps missing, said Albert Lopez, manager of production operations for Burbank Water and Power.

Over a similar time span, several hundred caps have also gone missing in Glendale, though no exact figure is immediately available, said Pat Hayes, principal civil engineer with Glendale Water and Power.

Replacement costs are about $80 per hydrant, he said. And substituting the metal caps for something less expensive like plastic is not feasible due to durability issues, Davies said.

"There's yet to be another product you can reliably get off," he said. "The fireman have to be able to spin them off quick, but we put them on tight so it's harder for people to steal them."

Law enforcement officials in Burbank and Glendale are stepping up police presence to deter would-be thieves and the Glendale Police Department recently orchestrated a sizeable stolen scrap metal bust, Hayes said.

"We've made some progress in a couple areas," he said. "We've tagged on to a program with another community that was experiencing losses of other devices … and they started a program called 'Scare the Scrap out of the Scrap Dealers,'" he said. "Basically, they were able to get their police involved and, by going to local scrap yards, impressing upon them that these materials were not salvaged materials — they were stolen materials."