Aside from being a busy and experienced department, the Detroit (MI) Fire Department prides itself on its two fireboats—the Curtis Randolph and the Sivad Johnson.
Detroit flanks 28 miles of the Detroit River, which divides Lake Erie in the south and Lake St. Clair to the northeast. A couple dozen freighters pass through the waterway each day as well as personal watercraft and small cruise ships.
Detroit also is an international border crossing with the Ambassador Bridge towering practically right over the city’s fireboat dock. The new Gordie Howe International bridge is currently being built just to the south.
1 The Curtis Randolph. (Photos 1-6 by author.)
2 Fireboat Captain Scott Reynolds stands at the controls of the Curtis Randolph.
3 Some of the control options of the Curtis Randolph.
4 Fireboat Deckhand Cynthia Wright waves to people on shore.
5 Out the front window of the Sivad Johnson.
6 The fireboat engine house.
7 The Sivad Johnson. (Photo courtesy of Silver Ships.)
“We come back usually around the first of May and we are here till mid-December—that’s the way it’s been the last couple of years,” says Captain Scott Reynolds.
The Sivad Johnson is taken out of the water and winterized, while the Curtis Randolph stays in the water, even though the crew is laid off.
Both fireboats are staffed by a crew of two—a captain and a deckhand—who stay at the fireboat house.
When a fireboat is dispatched to a call, a crew of firefighters will come from a nearby engine house—usually Engine 27 or Squad 4—but if they are already on a run, then another company would respond, board the boat, and head to the call.
Once there, the crew of the boat, a captain and a deckhand, will control and maneuver the boat, while the firefighters fight the fire and connect with other engines on the scene.
Each boat is special in many ways and the on-duty captain makes the decision on which boat is best for the call.
The Curtis Randolph was named and commissioned in 1977 after the tragic flashover death of Trial Firefighter Curtis Randolph, who was 22 when he died in the arson fire.
It’s 77 feet long with a 22-foot beam and can pump 10,000 gallons per minute (gpm) almost immediately on arrival.
It is much larger than the Sivad Johnson and takes much longer to get to where it needs to go, which is one of the main reasons a second boat was needed. The speed differential is notable: 19 knots compared to 50 knots.
Curtis Randolph SpecificationsLength: 77 feet 10 inches Beam: 22 feet 2 inches Draft: 5 feet 9 inches Speed: 19 knots Fuel capacity: 1,500 gallons Fresh water: 200 gallons Foam capacity: 200 gallons Gross tonnage: 85.39 Main engines: 2, 12-cylinder 49 Detroit Diesel Deck guns: two forward, two midship Designed by: John Koopman, NA, John Gilbert Associates, Boston, MA Built by: Peterson Builders Inc. |
Aside from speed, the size of the bigger boat is a limitation itself as Curtis Randolph sits high up out of the water, which makes water rescue very difficult.
The Sivad Johnson sits lower in the water and has accessible doors off the bow. The smaller boat can also maneuver into tight areas and go to a shorter depth.
The Curtis Randolph needs about nine feet of water to pump; otherwise, it begins to suck up mud. The Sivad Johnson can pump in just a couple of feet.
The Sivad Johnson was delivered in 2020 and was named for 49-year-old Firefighter Sivad Johnson.
Johnson was a 26-year veteran with the fire department who was off-duty when he jumped into the water near Belle Isle on August 22, 2020, to help save three young girls from drowning. The girls survived, but Johnson did not. He left behind a wife and two children, one a 10-year-old daughter who was standing on shore when her father drowned and called for help.
His loss hit the department hard, and the boat was commissioned soon after. Johnson was a beloved member of the department and was known as a mentor and an inspirational and motivated public servant.
The Sivad Johnson fireboat is 33 feet long and pumps around 1,000 gpm.
Both boats have deck guns that are operational immediately on arrival. The Sivad Johnson has a joystick-like controller that can maneuver the boat almost effortlessly in any direction without using the throttle. The pressure from the deck guns does have some push back, so constant navigating is required while they’re being used.
“The joystick is really neat,” says Reynolds. “This locks everything out; I can go forward with it, it doesn’t go very fast, but it’s used for maneuvering. That will literally turn the boat around its own length. Or, I press a button and that will hold us in place.” He explains the latitude and longitude position with GPS is fed into the computer to hold the vessel to within two feet of its set location.
Reynolds says it helps to work with the same crew member, and he usually works with Deckhand Cynthia Wright.
“We’re a team,” he says. “She goes one way and I go another. We’ve got it down pretty good where we don’t have to say anything. We just go and we do it and we’re ready to go. It works out and that’s what you get when you work with someone the whole time. That’s teamwork.”
Constance York is a multimedia journalist from Metro Detroit. She has been documenting the Detroit (MI) Fire Department since around 2002. Check out her Facebook page Detroit on Fire and her YouTube channel–Constance York.
