Jack London Square

[upbeat music] The Oakland Fire Department has a new fireboat.

The 42-foot Beowulf was christened on Wednesday, October 7th, and is stationed at Fire Station 2 in Jack London Square.

Fire Chief Damon Covington said that for more than two decades, the department has operated without a fully operational specialized fireboat.

According to an OFD spokesperson, it can pump 5,000 gallons of water per minute, tripling the department's prior marine firefighting capacity.

It happened Wednesday in the middle of the day.

On the way to another job, he stopped by Jack London Square in Oakland to-

Big mistake.

[laughs]

You can get-

Unfortunately, this guy learned the hard way, Johnny.

If you're driving around the Bay Area, it's not a good idea to stop around Jack London Square right now.

Bipping is back.

Now, what I've been doing since 1995 is organizing with a group called It's About Time out of Sacramento, California.

We came together to celebrate our 30-year reunion in 1996 at Jack London Square in Oakland, and we've been organizing ever since.

And since that time, I realized that we really didn't have an archive, a Panther archive.

We had a Huey P. Newton archive, you know, which didn't start until much after Huey got out of jail.

Then the boat is lifted onto a large barge to be removed.

It's become an unsightly issue at the Oakland Estuary near Jack London Square.

Sunken and abandoned boats that can break apart, unleashing toxic pollution like oil spills, endangering marine life, and leaving dangerous debris hidden beneath the surface.

In fact, authorities say this is a problem throughout the Bay.