Naval Firefighting School

in South Boston

Most instructors at the Navy Firefighting School had been members of large municipal firefighting departments. Training included classroom instruction and hands-on experience. Navy personnel participated in mixed groups of sailors and officers to foster a team approach to fighting a fire at sea.

c. 1944 photo courtesy of National Archives

During World War II, fires on board ships struck by torpedoes or direct shelling killed men and destroyed vessels and cargo. In June 1942, the U.S. Navy addressed the danger by establish-ing one of its first two firefighting schools here, at the Navy’s “K Street Annex.”

Thousands of sailors participated in a two-day program learning how to fight fires on simu-lated ship structures including an engine room, a fire room, a forecastle section typical of a destroyer, and an aircraft carrier hangar deck. A six-day course trained sailors who would direct firefighting duties on board ships.

The school was also an incubator for firefighting innovations. These included the use of foam, which blankets a fuel-based fire cutting off its air supply, and portable oxygen bottles, giving firefighters greater flexibility in movement.

After the war the school was declared surplus and was taken over by the city in 1948. It served as Boston’s primary firefighting training facility until 1957 when a new one was established on Moon Island in Boston Harbor.

Fires on board vessels, like this one in 1945 on the USS Franklin, were terrifying events. Firefighters, trained at Navy firefighting schools, were credited with saving lives and the carrier.

Courtesy of the National Archives

Dr. Percy Lavon Julian

One innovation likely tested at the Firefighting School here was Aer-O-Foam, an improved foam dubbed “bean soup” by the Navy. Aer-O-Foam was made possible using Dr. Percy Lavon Julian’s method for isolating soy protein and mixing it with water.

1993 commemorative stamp courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

After World War II ended, Navy personnel continued to train at this site along with Boston firefighters.

Courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection

Naval Firefighting School

The Naval Firefighting School here was part of extensive Army and Navy facilities in South Boston.  The K Street Annex also included an administration building, pump house, storage buildings, and Quonset huts—one for student quarters, the other a mess hall.

Sign Location

More …

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

  • Warm thanks to NPS historian Steve Carlson for his support and help.
  • Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and David W. Cook for their partnership in creating the audio files.