Christopher Wheatley
Chicago fireboat
The Christopher Wheatley is a fireboat delivered to the Chicago Fire Department in 2011.
When she was delivered in April 2011, she was the first new fireboat to serve the city in sixty years.
She replaced the Victor L. Schlaeger.
The vessel was, coincidentally, built in Wheatley, Ontario, and was named after a young Chicago firefighter who had died in the line of duty on August 9, 2010.
The vessel was designed specifically to function in an environment like Chicago, where she would be required to navigate shallow rivers, and pass under low bridges.
She has four diesel engines, two of which are dedicated to powering her four water cannons. A water cannon on her aft deck is on an extensible mast that can be raised to a height of 30 feet, if required, but can be lowered to pass under low bridges. Her radio mast can also be lowered, for passing under low bridges. Her water cannons can project 15,000 gallons per minute.
The Fire Department maintains crew on the vessel 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Christopher Wheatley” enters the record as chicago fireboat. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Christopher, Wheatley and Chicago can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Christopher Wheatley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.