The Long Beach Fire Department of the city of Long Beach, California owns and operates Fireboats in Long Beach, providing fire protection and rescue services for the Port of Long Beach and the marina and beach areas of the city of Long Beach [1] Although administered separately, the port facilities of Los Angeles and Long Beach are adjacent, and together, form one of the largest container ports in the world. [2] The cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach have a mutual aid arrangement where one will loan fireboats to the other in case of need.
image | name | launched | notes |
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Charles S. Windham | 1942 |
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Fireboat 1 | 1954 |
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Fireboat 2 | 1954 |
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Challenger | 1987 |
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Liberty | 1987 |
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Protector | 2014 | ||
Vigilance | 2015 |
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Workboat magazine reported, on June 14, 2017, that Long Beach planned to spend $100 million USD to construct two new firestations for its two new fireboats. [9]
A container ship is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.
The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies 7,500 acres (3,000 ha) of land and water with 43 miles (69
A fireboat or fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipment. Older designs derived from tugboats and modern fireboats more closely resembling seafaring ships can both be found in service today. Some departments would give their multi-purpose craft the title of "fireboat" also.
The Port of Long Beach, also known as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies 3,200 acres (13 km2) of land with 25 miles (40 km) of waterfront in the city of Long Beach, California. The Port of Long Beach is located less than two miles (3 km) southwest of Downtown Long Beach and approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of Downtown Los Angeles. The seaport generates approximately US$100 billion per year in trade and employs more than 316,000 people in Southern California. In 2022, the port, together with the adjoining Port of Los Angeles, were considered amongst the world's least efficient ports by the World Bank and IHS Markit citing union protectionism and a lack of automation.
The Port of Cape Town is the port of the city of Cape Town, South Africa. It is situated in Table Bay.
Ralph J. Scott, also formerly known as Fireboat #2, is a 100-foot (30 m) fireboat that was attached to the Los Angeles Fire Department serving the Port of Los Angeles. She was retired in 2003 after 78 years and replaced by Warner L. Lawrence. Ralph J. Scott is undergoing restoration near the Los Angeles Maritime Museum in San Pedro. On 30 June 1989, she was listed as a National Historic Landmark. She is currently located at the Los Angeles Fire Department, Fire Station 112, at 444 South Harbor Blvd, Berth 86, San Pedro, California.
The Alki is a fireboat noted for its long service in Seattle, Washington. The boat was built in 1927 and is 123 feet (37 m) long. She was Seattle's third fireboat. She was built with gasoline engines, which were replaced with diesels in 1947. The new engine retrofit allowed the Alki to increase its pumping capacity from 12,000 gallons per minute to 16,200 gallons per minute. She replaced the Snoqualmie, Seattle's first fireboat.
The city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has operated fireboats since 1928, when the city introduced the J.H. Carlisle.
The City of Long Beach, California started to operate a new fireboat, now known as the Protector, in May 2014. The vessel was known as Fireboat 20, until she was officially commissioned, on June 8, 2016. A sister ship will follow within a year. The two new vessels will replace the Challenger and the Liberty, commissioned in 1987. The earlier vessels had a troubled maintenance record. She will be one of the most powerful fireboats in the world.
The Challenger is a fireboat built for the Long Beach California Fire Department. She and her sister ship the Liberty were commissioned in 1987. They replaced two older vessels. Within a year both vessels developed serious corrosion problems, due to poor choice of alloys, and the joints between different metals.
Fireboats in San Diego have been operated on San Diego Bay by the city of San Diego, California since the early 20th century, as well as by the Port of San Diego since its creation as a quasi-governmental agency serving the entire Bay in 1962.
Leschi, named for the native American leader Chief Leschi, is a fireboat operated by the Seattle Fire Department. The ship was laid down in 2006 and commissioned in 2007; its sponsor was Sharon Nickels, wife of the then-mayor Greg Nickels.
The Columbia Elizabeth is a barge designed to carry shipping containers. She was launched in 1999, for Columbia Coastal Transport. The vessel's IMO number is 8639132. Her capacity is 912 TEU standard containers. When she was built she was one of the largest container barges ever built. Workboat magazine described her deck area as "the size of a football field".
The Fireboat Tiburon is a modern 35 feet (11 m) fireboat acquired by Tiburon, California's fire department in 2006. Two thirds of the vessel's cost was paid through a Port security grant from FEMA, a sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security. She replaced a used vessel acquired from the Los Angeles Fire Department in 2003.
California's major ports have long traditions of maintaining dedicated fireboats, and, soon after Al Qaeda's attack on September 1st, 2001, FEMA started issuing port security grants equipping fireboats for California's smaller ports, that are also equipped to work when hazardous materials have been released.
St. Francis is a fireboat operated by the San Francisco Fire Department on San Francisco Bay since 2016. Also known as Fireboat 3, she was given the official name on October 17, 2016, the anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Local schoolchildren helped pick the vessel's name.
The City of Houston and the Houston Port Authority have operated seven fireboats in Houston. The Port authority currently manages three fireboats in Houston.
The Howard T. Tellepsen was a fireboat operated by the Houston Port Authority from 1983 to 2014. She and her sister ship, the J.S. Bracewell, replaced the Port authority's second fireboat, the Captain Crotty, which had been in service since 1950. They joined the Captain J.L. Farnsworth, which had been in service since 1973.
Vigilance is a fireboat operated by Long Beach, California. It is the second of two large fireboats Long Beach commissioned and the largest on North America's West Coast.
Fireboat 20 and its sister are replacements for two older fireboats, the Liberty and Challenger.
After spending $4.4 million for two state-of-the-art fireboats, the Port of Long Beach is struggling to keep the vessels from becoming floating rust buckets.
In 1942, the City of Long Beach commissioned the building of its first fireboat, the Charles S. Windham. The Windham was built by Wilmington Boats Works and financed by the Harbor Department.
The commission is paying $653,000, the largest chunk of the funds, to a Terminal Island boatyard to correct design and construction deficiencies and to fix corrosion damage on the twin $2.2-million Challenger and Liberty, which were delivered to the city within the past two years.
The vessel, called "Protector," has its dedication from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8, at the Port of Long Beach Joint Command and Control Center. The ceremony isn't public, port media relations lead Lee Peterson said.
Protector and a second, still-under-construction boat, "Vigilance," will replace the Port's fireboats "Challenger" and "Liberty," which began service in the late 1980s and were designed in an era of vessels carrying 4,500 containers. The biggest vessels calling in Long Beach now have a capacity of 18,000 containers, with even larger ships coming in the future.
The Vigilance joined sistership Protector, replacing the late 1980s fireboats Challenger and Liberty, designed when the port was typically serviced 4,500-TEU capacity containerships. Now Long Beach regularly sees 14,000-TEU ships and expects larger vessels, like the 18,000- to 22,000-TEU ships planned by carrier CMA CGM.
The Port of Long Beach, Calif., will build a pair of new fireboat stations for more than $100 million to base its 108'x35' fireboats built by Foss Maritime Co., port officials said.