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.
John D. McKean is a fireboat that served the New York City Fire Department as Marine Company 1. She is named after John D. Mckean, who died in a 1953 steam explosion while trying to save a predecessor fireboat, the George B. McClellan.
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 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 Discovery is a fireboat launched on the Columbia River in 2014. The Discovery is operated by the Vancouver Fire Department. The vessel can pump 3,000 US gal/min (11,000 L/min) for firefighting, and is the city's first dedicated fireboat.
Grahamona was a sternwheel steamboat built in 1912 for the Oregon City Transportation Company, commonly known as the Yellow Stack Line. Grahamona was specially designed to serve on the shallow waters of the upper Willamette River. It was one of the largest steamboats ever to operate on the upper Willamette. In 1920, Grahamona was sold and the name was changed to Northwestern. In 1939, the vessel was sold again, and transferred to Alaska for service on the Kuskokwim River.
Since 2002, the Department of Homeland Security has provided Port Security Grants to ports within the United States, to build fireboats. These vessels are thought to help keep the entire United States safer, because, in addition to fighting local fires, they are all equipped to help counter nuclear fallout, chemical weapons and biological weapons.
Harvest Queen was the name of two stern-wheel steamboat built and operated in Oregon. Both vessels were well known in their day and had reputations for speed, power, and efficiency.The first Harvest Queen, widely considered one of the finest steamers of its day, was constructed at Celilo, Oregon, which was then separated from the other portions of the navigable Columbia River by two stretches of difficult to pass rapids.
Three Sisters was a sternwheel-driven steamboat that operated on the Willamette River from 1886 to 1896. The steamer was built as an extreme shallow-draft vessel, to permit it to reach points on the upper Willamette river such as Corvallis, Harrisburg and Eugene, Oregon during summer months when water levels in the river were generally low. The vessel was also known for having been washed up on a county road in Oregon during a flood in 1890.
Wenat was a stern-wheel steamboat that, under the name Swan, was built and operated, briefly, on the Tualatin River, in the state of Oregon. In 1858, Swan was sold, moved to the lower Willamette River, renamed Cowlitz, and placed on a route between Portland, Oregon the Cowlitz River.
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.
Imhaha was a stern-wheel steamboat which operated on the Snake River in the Pacific Northwest in 1903. The steamer was built, launched, placed in service, and wrecked within a single year. The rapids on the Snake river had only rarely been surmounted by a steamboat, and generally only with the aid of a steel cable for lining used to winch the entire boat upstream through the rapids. After only a few trips, Imnaha was destroyed in Mountain Sheep rapids, just downstream from the mining settlement of Eureka, on the Oregon side of the river.
The Sophie Masloff is a fireboat in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On December 16, 2016, Pittsburgh officials announced that half a million dollars had been budgeted to acquire a fireboat that was eventually named in honor of Pittsburgh's first female mayor. The new vessel, the city's first fireboat since 1973, was built by Lake Assault Boats, a Wisconsin firm for $542,750.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the United States' most active inland water ports, has been serviced by multiple fireboats.
The David Campbell was a fireboat built in 1912 for Oregon's Portland Fire and Rescue. She was a steam-powered vessel, built in a Michigan shipyard, disassembled, shipped in pieces, and reassembled in Portland. Her engines could develop 1,200 shaft horsepower (890 kW)
The Eldon Trinity is a fireboat operated in Portland, Oregon, United States, by the Portland Fire Bureau. She was launched in 2010. She is named after two children, Eldon and Trinity Smith, whose mother threw them off a bridge into Portland's Willamette River. Authorities recognized that the attempts to rescue the children exposed weaknesses in the city's rescue infrastructure. Eldon died, while his older sister Trinity survived.
The David Campbell was a long-serving fireboat built in 1928 for Oregon's Portland Fire & Rescue. She underwent an extensive rebuild, in 1976. In 2010 Portland acquired a new smaller, faster fireboat, the Eldon Trinity, named after the two children who were thrown off the Sellwoord Bridge in 2009, when it took the David Campbell 44 minutes to get to scene to provide medical care.
The Karl Prehn was a fireboat acquired by the Portland Fire Bureau in Portland Oregon, in 1973.
Mountain Gem was a sternwheel-driven steamboat that operated on the Snake and Columbia rivers from 1904 to 1912, when the machinery was removed and installed in a different, newly built steamboat. Mountain Gem remained on the U.S. merchant vessel registry until 1922 or later. Although Mountain Gem was not abandoned until 1924, there is no evidence it was used after 1912.
