Moncton students spend snow day digging out fire hydrants

A group of students from Bernice MacNaughton High School in Moncton have spent their snow days this winter digging a path to fire hydrants in the city.

Dressed in a safety vest and armed with a shovel, student Breagh Wadden says she wanted to do something to help the community.

"There are over 2,500 hydrants in the city of Moncton alone so there's no way we're going to be able to get all of them done, we just want to do as many as we can just to make our community a safer place," she said.

Every time a hydrant is freed from the snow, students tie a green ribbon around the marker to show the BMHS colours.

Student Doug Carew says it's been rewarding to help.

"You know it's pretty cool when you get to hang with your friends and you get to shovel out and it's good for the upper arm strength too — so you can't go wrong with that," Carew said.

Wadden says with each storm, digging out the hydrants has gotten more difficult. 

"We were out before the storm hit... and we did nine, and it only took about an hour and then yesterday after the storm I got a couple of people together and we went out and it took over an hour and we got four done. It's quite a bit of snow and it got really heavy."

Bernice MacNaughton is challenging all of the other high schools in the area to get involved, and start shovelling.

Wadden says she would like to see ribbons in all school colours on fire hydrants across the city.

"It's very satisfying … it feels nice to help."