The historic Boblo Island boat, the SS Ste. Claire, caught fire Friday at Detroit's Riverside Marina, according to Local 4 news.
The cause of the fire is unknown and crew members are on scene.
Authorities said the firefighters were dispatched to the scene at about 11:30 a.m.
"There were workers working on the boat. They had welding tanks and I was told they tried to self-extinguish it," said Detroit Fire Department Senior Chief Geoffrey Rhodes. “As a result, by the time the fire company got here, it was burning a lot. We all know how safe that boat is.”
The fire company did a defensive, exterior attack because it wasn’t safe enough to enter the boat.
Rhodes said authorities are considering shutting down power to the vessel, but that in turn would shut down the power for half the marina.
The Ste. Claire was first launched in 1910 and — along with its sister, the 1902-built Columbia — spent its life whisking Detroiters to Boblo Island, 18 miles southwest of Windsor.
The now defunct amusement park took the boats out of operation in 1991, citing declining attendance and increasing maintenance on the historic steamers.
The Columbia was towed out of Michigan in 2015 thanks to a New York preservation group, but the Ste. Claire began to waste away.
The Ste. Claire got a new chance at life when a Henry Ford Hospital ICU doctor named Ron Kattoo bought the boat in 2007 for $250,000. But the boat, a National Historic Landmark, has been forced to move several times in the last few years while preservationists tried to raise enough money to restore the vessel.
The Ste. Claire's co-owners, Katto and Saqib Nakadar, were at the scene Friday but said they had no comment as they figure things out.
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