Oakland Has a Working Fireboat Again for the First Time in More Than 20 Years

For the first time since 2003, Oakland has a fireboat of its own on the water. The Oakland Fire Department formally christened the Bay Wolf, a 42-foot vessel, at a ceremony on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at Fire Station 2 in Jack London Square, where the boat will be based on the Oakland-Alameda estuary.

Why it matters

Oakland's waterfront includes the Port of Oakland, one of the busiest container ports on the West Coast, along with marinas, restaurants and new housing at places like Brooklyn Basin. Yet for more than two decades the city has had no fully working fireboat and has leaned on neighboring departments for help on the water.

"For more than two decades, the Oakland Fire Department has operated without a fully operational specialized fireboat. Today, that changes," Fire Chief Damon Covington said at the ceremony, according to The Oaklandside. Mayor Barbara Lee called the launch "a monumental milestone" for the city's safety and described the port as an economic engine for Northern California and the country.

What the boat can do

Department spokesperson Michael Hunt told The Oaklandside the Bay Wolf will cover the port, local waterways and neighboring cities, and roughly triples the department's previous marine firefighting capacity. Station 2 Captain Tony Paskins said the boat carries a crew of four plus room for 12 more people, can work anywhere in the Bay Area, and has four water cannons on its roof and bow that reach about 100 feet.

It can also act as a floating water supply. If an earthquake or other disaster knocked out hydrants on land, Paskins said, two large hoses at the stern can pump bay water to fire engines on shore. How long it can stay out depends on the job: search and rescue can run for hours, while heavy pumping burns through its 300 gallons of diesel faster.

The boat went to work before it was officially launched. The weekend before the ceremony, it helped put out a fire at an empty warehouse on 5th Avenue near Brooklyn Basin, the department said.

A long time coming

The money came from an $825,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency port security grant awarded in 2021, Bay City News reported at the time. The Bay Wolf replaces the Sea Wolf, which arrived in Oakland in 1994 and was pulled from service in 2003 when budget cuts closed Station 2. The city kept the old boat maintained, and it was briefly pressed back into service in 2010 for a fire at a waterfront restaurant. Oakland sold the Sea Wolf this summer, and fireboats from San Francisco, Alameda and South San Francisco saluted it with water cannons as it left for private use in Stockton, Bay Area News Group reported.