The morning call., 1895-01-17

are used only on the water front of San
Francisco, and are not available at any
other point on the bay.
By an arrangement with the Fire De-
partment one of the local tugboat COM
panies sends a boat to any fire in the vicin-
ity of East street or the Mail Dock, but
Oakland, Sausalito, Port Costa, Napa,
Stockton and Sacramento have to depend
on their own resources. These boats, how
ever, have not the necessary speed to reach
a distant point quickly, nor have they the
power necessa ry to throw a number of big
streams of water.
The Chief of the Fire Department and
his assistants have devoted much of their
time recently to consideration of plans and
designs for firebOat that would not be too
expensive, yet would have the required
capacity, and they have adopted design
for fireboat that will be like one now in
use for the protection of New York harbor
bill will be presented in the Legisla-
ture at an early date calling for an appro-
priation of $4,000 for the construction of
the proposed vessel ii this amount is
granted the boat will be built at once.
The boat, if built, will have speed of at
least twenty knots an hour. Her hull Will
be made of mild steel, and she will be 100
feet long, 16 feet broad and draw not more
than feet, in order to be able to navigate
the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers.
Her pumping capacity viii be about 5000
gallons a minute.
1t is proposed to place the control of this
boat in the State authorities, but any of the
cities on the bay will be entitled to the use
of her on the payment of her running ex-
penses.
The boat will be a sea-going vessel in
order to render assistance to any city or
town along the Coast suffering from con-
fagration. With her powerful machinery
she will be able to throw sixteen streams
through 213-inch hose, and would thus be
equal to ten second-class fire engines.
In talking about the matter Yesterday
Chief Sullivan of the Fire Department
said:
''The cities of New York, Chicago, Phila-
delphia, Brooklyn, Boston, Baltimore,
Cleveland, Detroit and Seattle have real
lied that the best and only efficient method
of dealing with large fires in the water
front belt is by properly designed fire.
boats. Experience has taught that ordi-
nary fire engines are inefficient along water
fronts, because in most cases the situa-
tions and surroundings prevent the en-
gines from getting at the fires quickly and
from the most advantageous points. One
of the common places for fires to originate
is on shipping at the docks or on the docks
JUeiIlSSlNeS- OlU6ll dG GLc OuJ6T emu, where
the shore engines cannot be used at all.
OF course fires on shipping in the stream
or harbor cannot be touched by shore en-
gines, and such fires, whether without the
fire district of the city or not, often endan-
ger property within the city.
Experience with modern fireboats has
taught that they can get at the fires more
quickly and work TO an immensely greater
advantage than the shore engines when
the fire is directly on the water front.
When the fire is in the waterfront belt. saw
anywhere within 5000 feet of the water, the
boats are of immense advantage, not only
in throwing large streams direct through
long lines OF hose, or special and perrna-
nent pipes, but In many cases they can
furnish an ample supply of water for the
shore engines where full supply could
not be obtained otherwise
s"1he useful field of operation for mod
ern fireboat Is not confined to the water
front of port as generally supposed, but
extends in belt at least 3000feet wide and
parallel with the water front, and points
along navigable waters not accessible by
shore engines.
Before the year 1885 there had been
number of so-called freboats in the United
States, two in New York City and one in
each of several cities along the coast and on
the lakes; but these were simply tugs of
such small pumping power and so made
quately designed and equipped for the pur-
pose that the immense possibilities and
advantages to be obtained by this method
of fighting fires had not been realized at all
by insurance companies, not even by fire.
men themselves.
'"To repeat, the effectiveness of properly