LOS ANGELES CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT                                  February 22, 1962
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER
217 SOUTH HILL STREET
MARTIN T. PETERSEN, BATTALION CHIEF
MADISON 8-6161

FOR RELEASE THURSDAY, p.m., February 22, 1962

 
    Los Angeles Harbor's first new fire boat in over 35 years was met upon its arrival today by a flotilla of fire boats, Harbor Department vessels, and privately owned small craft as the new boat entered the Port of Los Angeles through Angels Gate, terminating the second and last leg of its delivery voyage from its place of construction in Portland, Oregon.

    The new 76'6" long "L. A. City No. 4," built at a cost of approximately $639,000 by the Albina Engine & Machinery Works boat-building yard in Portland, made the trip to Los Angeles in six days with a brief stop-over in San Francisco.  The vessel carried Assistant Fire Chief Bethel Gifford, who has been the Fire Department's liaison officer with designers and builders all during the fire boat's five year long development.

    Mayor Samuel Wm. Yorty and members of his staff were transferred from one of the escort boats to the new fire boat as it joined the family of Los Angeles fire boats and proceeded up the main channel amid a display of arching fire streams from its own turrets and the nozzles of the Los Angeles City Fire Department's Fire Boats numbers One and Two.

    Several vessels loaned for the occasion by cooperating agencies carried escorting boatloads of city officials up channel behind the fire boats.  Among these were the colorful side-wheeler "Princess," operated out of the Ports O'Call restaurant in San Pedro, the "Nona K," owned by Cummings Service & Sales, manufactures of the new fire boat's engine machinery, and the Harbor Department's "Angelina" and "Angels Gate."

    The group of vessels disembarked passengers and dignitaries at Berth 228-A, next door to the Fire Department's Fire Boat Station #2.  There they joined other city officials and citizens in a brief welcoming ceremony in which the new Fire Boat received a blessing by Fire Department Chaplain Reverend M. J. O'Callaghan.

    Welcoming comments were heard from Mayor Yorty and City Fire Chief William L. Miller, and the ceremony was closed with officers and crews assigned to the new Fire Boat going aboard to take command of the vessel.

        After a two to three week training period, the new Fire Boat will be berthed in a temporary dock adjacent to Berth #29 in Watchorn Basin.  It will be permanently located at Berth #29 when its new fire station facilities are completed in the spring of 1963, according to plan.

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Program at Berth 228-A

Master of Ceremonies - - Division Commander Jack Douglass - - Introductions.
Introduction of and brief address by City Fire Chief William Miller.
Introduction of and brief address by Mayor Samuel Wm. Yorty.
Blessing of the new Fire Boat by the Very Reverend Monsignor M. J. O'Callaghan, Fire Department Chaplain.
Reading of assignment roster by Chief William Miller and boarding of new fire boat by assigned officers and crews.
Salute exchange.
Benediction by Battalion Chief Joseph Hoffman, Fire Department Chaplain.