Pittsburgh fire department to spend $550,000 on a new boat!

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by norcider

Right, this boat won't have some commercially available motor. It's going to have a heavy duty power plant and drive gear. It's got cop tires, cop shocks, cop suspension and it will go like hell on leaded gas.

But it still won't touch the ones, two of them, our Sheriff Department here has, they are each fitted with mounts for twin .50 cal. machine guns.

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by Carolina Knight

Are Pittsburgh Bereau of Fire's two fire boats presently staffed full-time?

The two boats they have now are primarily enforcement/rescue boats. Both carry extinguishers but do not have capability other than Unit 5221 to run a line a little larger than a garden hose, about a 1 1/2" line.

Basically both used to rescue stranded people on boats, drownings, bridge jumpers, and enforcement of drinking & hazardous driving on the waterways, not to fight large fires.

There is one police officer and one EMS/Diver assigned to each that work out of the EMS boathouse next to PNC park, full time during the summer months and deployed from nearby stations/units during winter months. Fire personnel that are needed are usually called from Station 3 in the strip.

They plan to station the new fireboat at the boathouse, but from what I last heard, are undecided if there will be a full time crew of firefighters assigned to it as or again deployed as needed.

[trotter_rej]

Originally Posted by norcider

Right, this boat won't have some commercially available motor. It's going to have a heavy duty power plant and drive gear. It's got cop tires, cop shocks, cop suspension and it will go like hell on leaded gas.

Fix the cigarette lighter.

[stremba]

Originally Posted by Geeo

It's wise for the city to have a fire boat. We have about 40 miles of river within the city limits and the number of pleasure boats along the rivers is at an all-time high. There will be another fire, either on a pleasure craft, an industrial boat, on or under a bridge, or along a rail line at some point. The Liberty Bridger fire had to be fought by fire trucks that couldn't get close to the source of the fire and from on top of the bridge, since the fire was underneath.

Not to mention that even had the fire been on the bridge itself, the structural integrity of the bridge was compromised. It just isn't safe to drive a fire truck onto a bridge that is on fire.