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

^ "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.
^ "Transactions - The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers". Vol. 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.