FIREFIGHTER

About this property

Fire Fighter is a fireboat which served the New York City Fire Department from 1938 through 2010, serving with Marine Companies 1, 8 and 9 during her career. The most powerful diesel-electric fireboat in terms of pumping capacity when built in 1938, Fire Fighter fought more than 50 major fires during her career, including fires aboard the SS Normandie in 1942 and the SS El Estero in 1943, the 1973 collision of the Esso Brussels and SS Sea Witch, and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Authorized for construction in early 1937 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia based on designs submitted by noted naval architect William Francis Gibbs and his firm Gibbs & Cox, Fire Fighter was laid down at United Shipyards as Hull #856 and was christened and launched on August 28, 1938, by Eleanor Grace Flanagan. After fitting out and sea trials, Fire Fighter officially entered service with the New York City Fire Department at 9:00 a.m. on November 16, 1938, with Engine 57 at the Battery, as well as Pier 1 by the mid 1940s. Serving from this post until 1955 when she was Replaced as Engine 57 by the John D. McKean, Fire Fighter would respond to two of her most famous actions; the fire and capsizing of the SS Normandie in 1942 and the fire aboard the ammunition-laden SS El Estero in 1943, among dozens of other vessel and pier fires across New York Harbor. Shifting with the majority of commercial steamship line freight operations from Manhattan to the Brooklyn waterfront, Fire Fighter served as Engine 223 and later Marine 8 at the 37th Street Pier until 1959, where she moved to Marine 5 for a few months. She then moved to Marine 3 that same year and in 1962 she was taken out of service for a rebuilding of the boat, which included removing her 55' Tower. before shifting once again to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal on Staten Island, later the Homeport Pier in Stapleton where she joined Marine Unit 9, an assignment which made her the first-due marine firefighting asset at the heavily trafficked Narrows of New York Harbor and throughout the tight confines of both the Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull. With both waterways already heavily utilized by marine traffic calling at ports on the Chemical Coast, the rise of both the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal and Howland Hook Marine Terminal saw an increasing number of container ships transiting the same waters. These conditions led to several major vessel collisions and shoreside fires during her tenure in Staten Island, but the 1973 collision of SS Esso Brussels and SS Sea Witch would prove to be the largest fires she would ever fight single-handedly. For her and her crew's part in the response, firefighting and rescue of 31 surviving crewmen from the burning SS Sea Witch, the Fire Fighter was named a Gallant Ship and her crew received the American Merchant Marine Seamanship Trophy. To date, Fire Fighter remains the only fireboat to have received this award.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Richmond County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Richmond County.

More historic places in New York

Browse all historic places in New York.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

New York history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.