The City of Toronto's first official fireboat, the Charles A. Reed.

The Charles A. Reed was the City of Toronto's first official fireboat.[1] She was commissioned in 1923. Previously the privately owned T.J. Clark had provided firefighting capability.

The Charles A. Reed was used well into the 1950s and retired in 1964 and replaced by William Lyon Mackenzie.[2][3]

The Charles A. Reed was deployed to fight the fire that destroyed the SS Noronic in 1949 at Pier 9.[2][4][3] Historian Mike Filey described the vessel's wooden hull being damaged by the heat of the Noronic's blaze.[5] Filey said the vessel was a converted pleasure craft.[6]

Filey wrote that the vessel's namesake, Charles Ardagh Reed, served a single term as Ward 3 (The Ward) Alderman from 1922 to 1923.[5] He wrote that there is no record of the association with the fire department, that triggered him being honoured by having a fireboat named after him.

References

  1. ↑ "Ship of the Month No. 35 T. J. Clark". Maritime History of the Great Lakes. Archived from the original on 2014-01-01. "T. J." was fitted with fire fighting equipment and she served, in addition to her regular duties, as harbour and island fireboat until 1923 when the Toronto Fire Department took delivery of its own vessel, the wooden pumper CITY OF TORONTO T. F. D., soon renamed CHARLES A. REED.
  2. 1 2 K. Corey Keeble (2013-04-16). "Toronto Fire Station 334 – EMS Station 36" (PDF). Toronto Fire Services. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-08-21. Retrieved 2016-08-25. The Reed was of wooden construction, long, low, lean and elegant in appearance. Carrying a crew of five persons, the Charles A. Reed was fitted with two motors, one for propulsion and one for pumping.
  3. 1 2 Mike Filey (2019-09-21). "THE WAY WE WERE: 119 tragically killed in SS Noronic inferno 70 years ago". Toronto Sun. Retrieved 2019-09-23. The city's small fireboat, the Charles A. Reed, was virtually useless. Years later the little craft's uselessness prompted Toronto City Council to purchase a proper fireboat. Today's William Lyon Mackenzie (named in honour of Toronto's first mayor and a politician described as a "firebrand") entered service in 1964.
  4. ↑ Joel Stone (2015). Floating Palaces of the Great Lakes: A History of Passenger Steamships on the Inland Seas (illustrated, reprint ed.). University of Michigan Press. p. 230. ISBN 9780472051755.
  5. 1 2 Mike Filey (2016-07-23). "Meet the 'Iron Guppy': The past and future of Toronto's waterfront tugs and fireboats". Toronto Sun. Archived from the original on 2019-03-19. Retrieved 2017-03-29. Ports Toronto's new tug "Iron Guppy" (or perhaps pronounced a more sophisticated "Eeron Goopay") is the most recent in a succession work boats that over the years did yeoman service in and around our harbour.
  6. ↑ Mike Filey (2006). "Toronto Sketches 9: "The Way We Were" Columns from the Toronto Sunday Sun". Dundurn Press. p. 230. ISBN 9781459712454. Retrieved 2019-03-17.
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