Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
's first
fireboat
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 equipmen ...
. She was the first fireboat on North America's west coast. She was launched in 1891, as a long, wooden-hulled, steam-powered vessel. She was taken out of service, and rebuilt when Seattle completed its second fireboat, the ''
Duwamish Duwamish may refer to:
* Duwamish tribe, a Native American tribe in Washington state
* Duwamish River, in Washington state
* ''Duwamish'' (fireboat)
See also
* Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is ...
'', in 1909. Her coal-fueled boilers were replaced with oil-fueled ones. The retrofit included altering her profile. She had a new superstructure, and the replacement of her boiler meant replacing her original single smokestack with a pair of smokestacks. Built by
Pacific Coast Engineering
The Pacific Coast Engineering Company or PACECO is an American industrial fabricator and mechanical engineering company, and was previously a shipbuilding company in Oakland, California and then Alameda, California. To support the World War II ...
.
She was replaced, in front line service, by the more powerful, gasoline powered ''Alki'' in 1927. ''Snoqualmie'' was demoted to patrolling Lake Union. Since Lake Union is not at sea level, fireboats stationed elsewhere have a long delay arriving at fires on or near Lake Union, because they have to transit
canal lock
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water lev ...
s. She was finally retired from service, in Seattle, in 1932, when the great depression made maintaining her too much of a burden. Seattle sold her in 1935, for her value as scrap metal -- $1,800. She nevertheless remained afloat, and in use, for almost another four decades.
According to ''Alaska Shipwrecks: 1750 - 2010'', the ''Snoqualmie'' was destroyed by a fire, in
Kodiak, Alaska
Kodiak ( Alutiiq: , russian: Кадьяк), formerly Paul's Harbor, is the main city and one of seven communities on Kodiak Island in Kodiak Island Borough, Alaska. All commercial transportation between the island's communities and the outside ...
, on March 6, 1974. It stated that, after her retirement from Seattle, she had been re-used for a variety of purposes. Prior to the fire she was being used as a shrimp hauler. A coast guard vessel towed her away from a Kodiak re-fueling dock, to a point where she could be left to burn out without posing further danger. Observers said she burned for 36 hours.