A firehose is a thick, high-pressure hose used to carry water or other fire retardant (such as foam) to a fire to extinguish it. Outdoors, it is attached either to a fire engine or a fire hydrant. Indoors, it can be permanently attached to a building's standpipe or plumbing system.
As a figure of speech, education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is often referred to by students and alumni as "drinking from a firehose" — a reference to the high pressure of both the hose and the education.
This high pressure has also allowed the fire hose to serve as an instrument of crowd control , most infamously by Bull Connor in the Deep South against protesters for civil rights (see Martin Luther King, Jr. and U.S. civil rights movement). The images of this were so shocking that they galvanized public opinion against Connor.
