Sunday, May 13, 2007

Fireboat

A fireboat is a paying attention watercraft, often similar to a tugboat, with pumps and nozzles planned for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. They are mostly useful for fighting fires on docks and shore side warehouses as they can directly attack fires in the supporting underpinnings of these structures. They also have an countless supply of water available, pumping straight from the harbor and can be used to assist shore based firefighters when other water is in low supply or is unavailable, for example, due to earthquake breakage of water mains, as happened in San Francisco due to the 1989 Loma Pieta earthquake.
Modern fireboats are competent of pumping tens of thousands of gallons of water per minute. The most technically advanced of these is Fire Boat #2 of the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Warner Lawrence, with the capability to pump up to 38,000 US gallons per minute (2 m³/s) and up to 400 feet (120 m) in the air.
Fireboats are most frequently seen by the public when welcoming a fleet or historical ships with a display of their water moving capabilities, throwing large arcs of water in every direction.

No comments: