York Dept. Releases Details About New Fireboat

By Sam Thrift Friday, July 15, 2011

Captain Paul Long, deputy coordinator of emergency management for York County's Fire and Life Safety Department, has supplied more information about the new fireboat the county will purchase with a Homeland Security Port Security Grant. Acceptance of the grant sparked conversation at the Board of Supervisors meeting when it was approved June 21.

Long said in an email that the department intends to replace the current 23-foot May-Craft “fishing” boat with the 33-foot Metalcraft Marine Firestorm 30 fire and rescue boat.

He explained that the vessel will serve as a marine fire engine, rescue vessel and will provide emergency medical services for the 230 miles of York County shoreline.

The grant the fire department obtained will provide $550,000 in funding for a new boat. Previously appropriated Virginia Department of Fire Programs grant funds will provide for the remaining funding of the boat and associated equipment, which totals $640,506.

Two Republican board candidates voiced concern at the beginning of the Board of Supervisors meeting last month because of York County Fire Chief Steve Kopczynski's inability to provide the cost of maintaining the new boat.

District 3 candidate Bob D’Eramo, who is challenging incumbent Don Wiggins in the August 23 primaries, and District 2 candidate Frank Barger, who is challenging incumbent Sheila Noll, questioned the cost and need for a new boat.

“My issue is not the acquisition of the boat or the cost of the acquisition, which is apparently nothing; it’s the expense of running such a boat,” D”Eramo said.

Although Kopczynski was unable to provide details about the cost at the meeting, Long was able to find the answers to the candidates' questions.

Long said that the expenditures on maintenance and upkeep of the current boat have cost slightly more than $21,000 over the past five years. He anticipates that the cost will increase with the new boat, but could not provide exact figures.

He explained that accepting the grant was logical because the replacement of the current boat was planned in the County’s Capital Improvement Program before the department was awarded the grant. If that plan had been approved, the boat would have been funded directly by local tax dollars. “The County’s acceptance of the Port Security Grant to purchase the new fire boat eliminates the planned Capital Improvement expenditure,” Long said.

The fireboat is used to respond to emergency requests and for patrolling the waterway during major events. Long said that the department deployed its current fireboat approximately 200 times for a wide variety of incidents since 2000.

“Our ability to respond and provide emergency medical care on the water is the only means of providing emergency care to those who, because of the medical emergency, cannot operate their boat to return to shore,” Long said. “By meeting them on the water and providing immediate care, [they] don’t have to try to wait to reach shore in order to access lifesaving medical care.”

Long was able to provide a recent incident that displayed the limitations of the current boat and the need for a more capable vessel. On the weekend of July 4 waterfront residents of Quartermarsh Drive in Yorktown's Lindsay Landing neighborhood reported hearing someone calling for help from the water during a severe thunderstorm. Unable to locate anyone in the water using land-based units, rescue workers had to wait until the storm broke to dispatch the fireboat to continue the search.

“This response was interesting in that the search had to begin from the shore, because it was initially too dangerous to launch our current boat because of the weather, conditions that would not impact the new fire boat,” Long said.

Firefighters later discovered that the person who'd cried for help, a kayaker who could not get back to shore due to the currents, was rescued by a resident using a jet ski.

Although Kopczynski was unable to tell the board how much the boat would cost to maintain, the board was convinced that there was a need for a new boat and approved the grant 5-0.

“The bottom line of what I’m hearing from you and the experts is that we’re short of a boat and that we need to modernize the equipment,” Supervisor Tom Shepperd said at the meeting. “This is something that will meet the needs and protect the citizens of not only York County, but other localities among the coast.”

The new boat will be docked at Riverwalk Landing in Yorktown and at the Wormley Creek Marina at the mouth of Wormley Creek and the York River.