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ALL AT SEA CONTAINER FIRES • EVERY TWO WEEKS, A FIRE BREAKS OUT ON A CONTAINERSHIP BUT ONLY A HANDFUL MAKE THE NEWS. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THOSE STATISTICS? THE SCOURGE OF fires aboard containerships is proving very difficult to address. It is widely said that a fire breaks out roughly every two weeks – and yet the number of high-profile incidents such as the fires aboard MSC Flaminia or Maersk Honam are, by comparison, fairly rare. So if there are, say 25 containership fires every year, why do only a handful make the news? This was one issue addressed during a webinar hosted by TT Club and the UK P&I Club in February, during which some 200 interested viewers spent a little more than an hour with two experts in the field: John Gow, senior investigator with IFIC Forensics and a 40-year veteran as a professional firefighter
and incident commander; and Nick Haslam, principal master mariner and partner at Brookes Bell. The potential impact of a uncontrollable fire aboard a ship at sea is immense: there is the risk of loss of life and of damage to property and the environment, which can come at a massive cost to the maritime industry and its insurance underwriters. Gow mentioned that the total loss involved in the MSC Flaminia case came to some $260m and, as containerships continue to get bigger, the industry is facing potential losses of up to $1bn. Furthermore, as has been noted repeatedly, many of these fires are known
or suspected to have been caused by dangerous goods, often mis- or undeclared or hidden by the use of special provisions. This creates problems for firefighters: how can they attack a fire if they do not know what is burning? LIFE AT SEA Gow used his extensive experience as a firefighter to contrast the practicalities of fighting a fire at sea compared to on land. After all, on an ultra-large containership, the container stack can be 70 metres or more high, equivalent to a high-rise building ashore. Considering firefighting on land, Gow mentioned that personal protective equipment (PPE) has improved immensely in recent years, especially in terms of lightweight breathing apparatus (BA). In addition, buildings are generally designed so as to contain any fire that does break out and are often fitted with sprinklers. Firefighters attending such a blaze normally find that access is comparatively easy and they are also likely to get an early indication of the fire. If additional resources are needed, they can come quickly – within minutes in an urban environment. At sea, however, PPE is not so good. Gow said that BA is normally limited to about 30 minutes but this is optimistic given the time it takes to get to the fire and get out safely. The arrangement of containers on a ship is both a help – cargo compartments can contain a fire – but also a potential hindrance, when the containers are packed tightly on deck, making it difficult for responders to move freely and to get equipment to the right place. For underdeck fires, getting personnel into the area to fight the fire means an enclosed space entry, which is not recommended. Furthermore, the speed of response is much slower than on land – it may take some time for the fire to be noticed and located, and then crew have to get the right equipment to the right place. Accommodation units and wheelhouses are usually fairly well protected but can, Gow said, be hard to access, with narrow
HCB MONTHLY | MARCH 2021
