Fire department will be prepared year round with specially-designed watercraft.
“By the time we got there the island was an inferno,” said one firefighter. “We didn’t stand a chance, but we did what we could,” according to faulknerslight.org.
Now, permanently docked at the Guilford Town Marina is a $457,000 aluminum fireboat ready and available for any emergency that occurs on Long Island Sound and beyond.
A federal grant covered 75 percent of the cost, while donations from the Harbor Management Commission, Marina Commission, Shellfish Commission and Sachem’s Head Yacht Club offset the 25 percent of the town’s burden of the cost.
“It’s an excellent piece of apparatus that now is a part of our fire fighting/life saving equipment in the Guilford Fire Department,” said First Selectman Joseph Mazza.
A committee worked closely with Metal Craft Marine in Kingston, Ontario to design the new boat. It replaces the previous fireboat, in service since 1988, which was basically designed for sport fishing.
Senior Marine Captain Peter Beauvais remembers using that boat during a hurricane to rescue a “sail boater who had lost his sail.”
“It was actually a four agency response,” he said. “We had 12-foot waves and 70-mile-an-hour winds.
“It’s not exciting. It’s not as fun as everyone thinks it is.”
Whether it is a boater’s distress call, a swimmer in danger, or a fire at a dwelling close to the shore, the boat is equipped to answer the call. Source; Sarah Page Kyrcz Shoreline Times
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