Snoqualmie (fireboat)

The Snoqualmie was Seattle's first fireboat.[1][2] She was the first fireboat on North America's west coast. She was launched in 1891, as a 98 feet (30 m) long, wooden-hulled, steam-powered vessel.[3] She was taken out of service, and rebuilt when Seattle completed its second fireboat, the Duwamish, in 1909. Her coal-fueled boilers were replaced with oil-fueled ones. The retrofit included altering her profile. She had a new superstructure, and the replacement of her boiler meant replacing her original single smokestack with a pair of smokestacks.

The Snoqualmie at her moorings in 1920
Name: Snoqualmie
Builder: Pacific Coast Engineering
Launched: 1909
Out of service: 1935
General characteristics

She was replaced, in front line service, by the more powerful, gasoline powered Alki in 1927.[1][2] Snoqualmie was demoted to patrolling Lake Union. Since Lake Union is not at sea level, fireboats stationed elsewhere have a long delay arriving at fires on or near Lake Union, because they have to transit canal locks. She was finally retired from service, in Seattle, in 1932, when the great depression made maintaining her too much of a burden. Seattle sold her in 1935, for her value as scrap metal -- $1,800.[4] She nevertheless remained afloat, and in use, for almost another four decades.

According to Alaska Shipwrecks: 1750 - 2010, the Snoqualmie was destroyed by a fire, in Kodiak, Alaska, on March 6, 1974.[4][5] It stated that, after her retirement from Seattle, she had been re-used for a variety of purposes. Prior to the fire she was being used as a "shrimp hauler". A coast guard vessel towed her away from a Kodiak re-fueling dock, to a point where she could be left to burn out without posing further danger. Observers said she burned for 36 hours.

References
  1. Richard Schneider (2007). Seattle Fire Department. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781439634332. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
  2. "Alki fireboat: The History". Archived from the original on 2015-08-10. Retrieved 2017-03-20. In 1927 Seattle’s third fireboat, the Alki, measuring 123 feet in length with a pumping capacity of 12,000 gallons per minute, replaced the aging Snoqualmie fireboat.
  3. Joan Dodd (2014). Cow Woman of Akutan: An Extraordinary, Compelling Story of a Unique Alaska Adventure. Publication Consultants. ISBN 9781594334801. Retrieved 2017-03-21. Then in 1909 the boat was considered worn out and unseaworthy, was replaced by a larger, steel-hulled vessel. But in 1910, the Snoqualmie got an overhaul, and was converted from coal-fired to oil-fired power.
  4. Glen Carter (1974-03-06). "Fireboat comes to a flaming end off Kodiak dock". Seattle Times. Retrieved 2017-03-21. She was retired in 1932. She was sold for scrap for $1,888 in 1935. But she helped build the Mercer island floating bridge in 1939-40, then went into obscurity.
  5. Captain Warren Good (2016). Alaska Shipwrecks: 1750 - 2010. Lulu Press. ISBN 9781329876859. Retrieved 2017-03-21.
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