Sentence:  This discovery gave a great impulse to mechanical ingenuity, and many schemes were contrived to make this new agent available as a motive power; but the first of these projects that appears to have been of any avail was the <WSD>fire engine</WSD> of Captain Tomas Savery, who produced a vacuum by condensing steam in close vessels, and then applied the vaccuum so obtained to the elevation of water. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Any fire apparatus, such as the pumping apparatus on a fire boat.