Fireboat

fireboat

[′fīr‚bōt]

(naval architecture)

A vessel similar to a tug but fitted with fire-fighting apparatus.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Fireboat

 

a vessel used to extinguish fires on vessels and along the waterfront. Fireboats are equipped with pumps that deliver water to fixed turntable monitors or hose pipelines. Pumps may be driven by special motors or by the fireboat’s propelling motor. The delivery of the pumps is 200 to 1,000 m³/hr. There are between two and eight turntable monitors, which are generally installed on the bow, stern, and superstructure of the vessel. It is possible to operate the turntable monitors by remote control. Tanks filled with foam-generating substances allow fireboats to extinguish fires involving petroleum and petroleum products on tankers and in coastal storage facilities. Spraying pipe systems are installed around the hulls of fireboats to allow the boats to come very close to burning objects. The seagoing fireboat General Gamidov of the USSR has a displacement of about 1,000 tons and eight turntable monitors, which have a total delivery of 4,000 m³/hr and can send water between 100 and 120 m. The combined water-and-foam fire-extinguishing system can deliver to the scene of a fire as much as 3,400 m³ of foam within 15 min. The cruising speed of the vessel is 17 knots (31.4 km/hr).

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.