CFAV ''Firebird'' was a in the

Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the Navy, naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack s ...

Robert Allan Ltd. Robert Allan Ltd. is Canada's oldest privately owned consulting Naval Architectural firm, established in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1930. Their experience includes designs for vessels of almost all types, from small fishing boats to ocean- ...

''Firebird'' was based in CFB Halifax, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her sister ship is based in CFB Esquimalt. Her three water cannons can fire water, or fire suppressant foam from her two 250 gallon tanks.

Design and construction

According to the '' Canadian American Strategic Review'' the class was designed by naval architects

Robert Allan Limited Robert Allan Ltd. is Canada's oldest privately owned consulting Naval Architectural firm, established in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1930. Their experience includes designs for vessels of almost all types, from small fishing boats to ocean- ...

, and were built at Vancouver Shipyards in North Vancouver in 1978, and later acquired by the

Canadian Forces } The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force. ...

. The two ships displaced and were long, with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of and a draught of . The ships were powered by two azimuthing Z-drives and one hydraulic tunnel

bow thruster Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...

. This gave the vessels a maximum speed of . The ships had a crew of five firefighters. The Fire class was equipped with three manually-controlled water cannons, two diesel-driven fire pumps capable of expending 2,500 gpm at 150

psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviation ...

each.

Operational history

On 22 March 2001 a large container vessel, '' Kitano'', one day out of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, requested help fighting an onboard fire after she had gone to sea. Because of the extreme weather, ''Firebird'' was unable to leave the protected waters of

Halifax Harbour Halifax Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, located in the Halifax Regional Municipality. Halifax largely owes its existence to the harbour, being one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbo ...

to go to ''Kitanos aid; larger Navy vessels were dispatched instead. ''Firebird'' suppressed a serious fire in 's engine room in 2005. In 2008, the firefighting ship aided the Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency department in extinguishing a fire aboard a former Canadian Coast Guard ship

CCGS Tupper CCGS ''Tupper'' was a Canadian Coast Guard ice-strengthened buoy tender that served from 1959 to 1998. The vessel spent her entire career on the East Coast of Canada. Following her Canadian service, ''Tupper'' was sold to private interests with t ...

. In January 2014 it was announced that ''Firebird''s time available for firefighting operations would be cut back due to budget reductions and that all operations on weekends would be suspended. It was announced that on 4 December 2014, ''Firebird'' was taken out of service and declared surplus.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Firebird (YTR 561) Fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy Fire-class fireboats 1978 ships Auxiliary ships of the Royal Canadian Navy Fireboats of Canada Transport in Halifax, Nova Scotia