Port Houston (fireboat)

The Port Houston, commissioned in 1926, was the first fireboat to serve the Houston area.[1] She was replaced by the Captain Crotty in 1950.

According to the Transactions of The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the Port Houston was the world's first diesel-electric fireboat.[2]

References

1. "State-of-the-Art Emergency Response Vessel Headed Home". Port of Houston Authority. Houston. 2014-05-14. Retrieved 2019-08-30. In 1924, a fire in the hold of a steamship carrying cotton prompted the Houston Fire Commissioner to declare that the Port of Houston needed adequate firefighting apparatus to attack fires from water as well as land. A bond election to pay for the city's first fireboat passed with a wide margin. This election occurred just one day after a fire along the banks of the Houston Ship Channel spread to oil on the water and burned for more than two hours, with flames as high as 40 feet.
2. "Transactions - The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers". 34. Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. 1927. pp. 254, 260. Retrieved 2019-08-30. The Diesel electric fireboat Port Houston, mentioned by the author, cost the city of Houston, Texas, $314,000, according to the Office of the Port Commission.