Lisbon's water supply is provided by a monopoly which is required to provide free water for firefighting and street cleaning. Each ordinary building has a single water outlet at the front of the building, facing the street, which supplies water for firefighting and street cleaning. The mains are paid for and maintained by the water company. The hydrants are paid for by the Municipality and maintained by the Lisbon City Fire Department (RSB).

A few office buildings and shopping malls have street level inlets(syamese) to feed internal dry columns with pre-connected atack lines and/or sprinklers.

Interior attack by firefighters is usually accomplished,in the first strike, with hard hose(diam. 25 mm) from reels, backed-up by stand-by soft hose lines(diam. 50mm and 70 mm).

Because only low flows and pressures are available from the hydrants and building outlets, the RSB typically will send tankers to all major fires to supply water to the pumpers operating at the fire building. These tankers have capacities of between 4,000 liters/1,000 gallons and 16,000 liters/4,000 gallons (US).