Sophie Masloff (fireboat)


In December 16, 2016, Pittsburgh officials announced that half a million dollars had been budgeted to a acquire a fireboat that was eventually named the Sophie Masloff. The new vessel was built by Lake Assault Boats, a Wisconsin firm with experience building fireboats. She was named in honor of Pittsburgh's first female mayor.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the vessel will be equipped with "sonar, forward-looking infrared cameras, and a state-of-the-art electronic suite". She will be long and able to pump a modest 3,000 gallons per minute.
Two recent fires, a boat fire in 2015, and fire on a bridge undergoing maintenance, in 2016, convinced officials of the need for a fireboat. In May of 2016 local media reported that the new vessel had been provisionally budgeted at $400,000. In 1973 the city sold its previous fireboat, named after former mayor Cornelius D. Scully, to Tampa, Florida, for $50,000.
The vessel would be staffed by the crew of one of the city's regular fire-trucks, not by its own full-time crew.
On June 1, 2016, Brian O'Neill, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, characterized the purchase decision as "yet another case of an undersized city taking on metropolitan tasks with no help from the greater metro area," suggesting that, once built, the fireboat would routinely be called upon to deal with emergencies in neighboring municipalities that weren't sharing its costs.
On January 11, 2017, Lake Assault Boats, of Superior, Wiscconsin, was awarded a contract to build the boat, for $542,750. The firm beat out two competing bids.
The vessel was delivered in August, 2017. Firefighters underwent training so there would be a pool of trained personnel so the vessel could go operational in September, 2017