''Curtis Randolph'' is a

fireboat A fireboat or Fire-float Pyronaut, 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 ...

operated by the Detroit Fire Department. The vessel was launched in 1979, and is named after a young firefighter who died in the line of duty in 1977. Mayor Coleman A. Young commissioned the vessel. According to the Detroit Public Safety Foundation it is the "only Class A fireboat on the waterways between Chicago and Cleveland." The boat can pump 11,000

gallons per minute The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia, ...

. The ''Curtis Randolph'' replaced the ''John Kendall'', an older vessel that required a crew of ten, including five men whose sole responsibility was to stoke the

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

s. Detroit's economic decline has eroded the Fire Department's equipment maintenance budget. The ''Curtis Randolph'' was unavailable for much of 2006 due to delays in crucial repairs. On February 19, 2015,

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

's Detroit station reported that although in previous years the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

had moved the vessel from its mooring in the

Detroit River The Detroit River is an List of international river borders, international river in North America. The river, which forms part of the border between the U.S. state of Michigan and the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ont ...

in October to prevent ice damage, the board still had not been removed. On August 24, 2016, the ''Curtis Randolph'' was loaned to help fight a fire at a power plant in St. Clair, Michigan, away. It was the vessel's most distant assignment. The boat's pumps supplied water to four fire engines. It took the ''Curtis Randolph'' four hours to travel to the fire.

References

Fireboats of Detroit 1979 ships {{Ship-stub

See also

References