FireStorm 50 High Speed Aluminum Fireboat by MetalCraft Marine

The FS-50 is a Class 'B' fireboat but meets Class 'A' pumping and flotation requirements. Under the new NFPA 1925 Rev, 2008, the 50 should be classed as a Type 3 fireboat.

Firestorm 50 High-Speed Aluminum Fireboat

The MetalCraft Marine FireStorm 50 High-Speed Aluminum Fireboat represents a new generation in fireboat technology. It is a culmination of years of study and research into high volume pumping systems and their effects on a small boat's stability, controllability, dynamic loading and righting moments.

The FireStorm 50 provides more speed, maneuverability & pumping capacity than any other high speed fireboat in the market today. It is fitted with twin Hale pumps that produced flow meter results of 6665 GPM @ 150 PSI, 7000 GPM @ full stream, from two 3000 GPM Hale pumps. The pumps are situated low in the engine room and are, therefore, self-priming.

High pump numbers are due to unique MetalCraft Marine proprietary designed sea chests. These sea chests have an intake three times the cross sectional area of the main, can be inspected and cleaned while underway and provides a positive head to the pump, as well as pump redundancy.

The monitor location is central to good design and is close to the center of buoyancy of the boat. This permits the helmsman to pivot the streaming at any angle. The boat's head never blows off its course. Simplicity is the key to the fire system, and is based on fire truck system design for ease of maintenance and repairability.

Miami-Dade County, FL
Speed	38 kts. Fully loaded
L.O.A	50' flush deck
B.O.A	15' 10"
Draft	25"
Pump	(rated) 2 @ 3000 GPM Hale, flow results were 6665
Monitors	2x Elkhart 8394 remote and manual
Engine	Twin Cat C18, 885 HP each
Jets	Hamilton Twin 364

Miami FireStorm 50 at night
from flashproductions (3:09 min)

Fire Systems

The unique MetalCraft Marine proprietary designed sea chest (Copyright 2001) allows for the large pumping capacity. This sea chest with an intake as large as a firefighter himself, provides a filtered water source to the pump while self draining with the boat on plane.

The monitor location is central for further range and is close to the center of buoyancy. This permits the helmsman to pivot the boat around a high thrust load at full stream while running a low engine rpm, not unlike a towboat.

Operators are amazed at the boat's control while at full-stream in any given angle thereby, never allowing the boat to be blown off course.

Simplicity in design was key to the fire system. This truck design theory allows for a consistent ease of performance, maintenance and reparability.

* Some exceptions to the NFPA 1925 apply, based on individual specifications.

FireStorm 50
Pumping Demo (0:52 sec)

Hull Shape

MetalCraft Marine FireStorm 50 high-speed aluminum fireboat

The FireStorm operates on the Kingston hull design platform. This Kingston hull form is a proprietary design that features a delta-pad center planing flat, which provides the additional lift required to offer a low trim angle through the pre-planing transition zone, "the hump".

Fireboats carry approximately 25% more fire and rescue gear than a conventional patrol boat. This normally causes the planning surface area to be very marginal or even too low in the water to plane at all. A heavy boat with a small water plane causes exaggerated high bow planning angles and heavy loads on engines reducing their longevity. With this hull design, MetalCraft has proven you can get speed and performance without compromising the equipment list.

Rescue Systems

While arriving on-scene faster than most large vessels, FireStorms offers a wide range of specialized rescue features for first or only response.

There are many options to rescue systems offered by MetalCraft Marine, the ones chosen by the Miami-Dade Fire/Rescue are as follows;

starting at the bow, she had a crumple zone push knee box, that provides additional flotation and lift for those very large seas, the push knees have heavy duty extruded rubber fenders, with a built in bow ladder to provide access to and from the boat when beaching.
She has a gas sprung opening front windshield with roller and safety guides for bringing a stokes basket into the cabin via the front windshield. This helps greatly if running short crew, or the boat is rolling too heavily in rough seas.
Hinged main patient berth allows two medics to maintain the patient. Piped oxygen is piped to four patient berths, three in the forecabin and the main.
Main berths have retractable seatbelt restraints to hold patient in.
The boat has climate controlled HVAC to maintain temperature.
There are two outside backboard locations aboard the airvent seat boxes.
The wide aft recovery deck, is low to the water to aid divers and survivors to climb aboard, there are also rescue handrails around the perimeter of the deck.
The wide aft deck steps, permit the crew to keep heart or hypothermic patients to be kept level while moving them into the cabin.

Details

Fire Fighting Systems

Roof mounted, remote operated 2000 GPM monitor, Elkhart 8394
Bow mounted manual 2000 GPM monitor, Elkhart 8394
LDH 5" Storz connection for supply to land units
2x3" or 21/2" capped discharges
All fire controls and gauges at dedicated console

EMS Support

Heated and Air Conditioned patient care area with primary patient care berth and two secondary care berths
Dedicated EMS equipment storage with A/C outlets for battery chargers
SCBA storage panel and dive tank storage racks, breathable air.

Electrical System