Firefighters learn to navigate some pretty tight corners with their rigs. But as snow piles up, there’s a limit to how narrow a street can get from snowy curb to snowy curb before it’s time for emergency measures.

“The curb lines are narrowing everywhere,” said Assistant St. Paul Fire Chief Matthew Simpson.

St. Paul Fire Department officials evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether a street is passable. Then, they work with St. Paul Public Works to determine what steps need to be taken if it isn’t.

So far, that hasn’t meant instituting parking on only one side of the street, as Minneapolis chose to do this week.

With frigid temperatures and more snow expected in the next two weeks, however, that could change, given that snow accumulation is likely to outpace any melt.

“If we identify through our crews — or one of the residents — ‘Hey, I don’t think this street is passable,’ we’re reporting that to Public Works,” Simpson said. “We’re going out and making sure we can access the street.”

Public Works can send plows around to attempt pushbacks on snow that’s piled into parking and driving lanes, but that’s difficult to do with any thoroughness when cars are parked in the way. At some point, temporary parking restrictions may be required.

So far, the fire department has received only one call from the public.

On Tuesday, a resident of Linwood Avenue between Chatsworth and Oxford streets called the city to report that he felt emergency vehicles will have trouble accessing his area because of piling snow.

“We went out and we looked at it and found it to be passable,” Simpson said.

What else can residents do to help emergency responders?

Simpson points out it takes just a few minutes for residents to shovel out their nearest fire hydrant — a move that would save firefighters precious time in the event of a fire, which can double in size every minute.

With 7,000 hydrants in St. Paul alone and plenty of other responsibilities to keep crews busy, it’s a challenge the fire department can’t tackle alone. Fortunately, residents are answering the department’s call to free a fire hydrant and post a selfie to Instagram with the hashtag #SaintPaulFireDepartment.

“The ‘free the fire hydrants’ (reaction) is awesome,” Simpson said. “That is a huge deal. That’s significant help for us in so many ways.”

PUSHBACKS AND BLOWERS

With record snows piling up throughout February, St. Paul has declared five snow emergencies over the past five weeks.

Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Public Works, said the city is taking the unusual step of removing snow where necessary and relocating it to three city-owned lots around the city. Those spots — which aren’t being identified for safety reasons — are not yet full. “We still have space,” she said.

Snow removal was scheduled to begin at Wednesday night along Fourth Street downtown. Much of downtown snow removal will happen late night or overnight.

That’s an arduous, time-consuming task that may require temporary parking restrictions. More commonly, by day drivers will find Public Works snowplows touching up main through-streets where they can by pushing the snow out of driving and parking lanes wherever they have access.

“People may notice additional no-parking signs around town,” Hiebert said. “Please follow those signs. This greatly helps our crews quickly get in to do additional snow work.”

In certain areas, Public Works is taking advantage of existing parking restrictions to do snowblowing. Along Marshall Avenue from Snelling Avenue to the Mississippi River, crews are using industrial blowers to blow the snow into the boulevard to help widen streets and reopen parking and bike lanes.