The crew on a merchant ship are their own emergency services. In the course of going to sea for 35 years I attended at least half a dozen excellent firefighting schools. While on board ship, we have emergency drills at least once a week.
My third ship, in 1978, had an engine room fire which required evacuating the engine room and flooding the entire space with CO2. A textbook response it was successful. For the rest of my career, there were a handful of small fires, waste paper baskets etc. easily handled with a handheld fire extinguisher.
Until my last trip before I retired. I was second mate on a container ship running between the West Coast and Honolulu. An additional duty was in charge of number one emergency squad. Squad two was led by Dennis the first engineer.
To complicate matters, both the captain and chief mate were on the ship as one trip reliefs. No reflection on them whatsoever, they did lack familiarity with both the ship and personnel. Fortunately, the ship and crew was pretty solid.
Murphy’s Law dictates that emergencies happen late at night in lousy weather. Some saltwater migrated down an electrical line into a big 440 panel in the space under the foredeck(bow). This shorted out the panel, started a fire and blacked out the ship. The engineers got the plant back on the line, secured ventilation and electricity to the space.
The emergency squads suited up and assembled in the vicinity of the fire. Although there was plenty of smoke, heat was not excessive. Dennis and I decided to enter the space along with Dale, AB seaman. We were in full firefighter turnout gear with breathing apparatus, radios, and a charged inch and a half hose. While advancing, it occurred to me that after 35 years, this was the real deal and I was a bit surprised how comfortable I was in the situation. Much of this had to do with my two partners. Dennis was an incredible engineer, really good people, Dale, had been an army Ranger and seen combat, a real pleasure to work with under any circumstances.
Anyway, we got to the breaker panel and determined that was the cause. Plastic inside was still burning, although not an inferno. A concern was a large hydraulic oil storage tank a few feet away. Would have taken considerable heat for that to become a problem, but certainly not to be ignored.
We tried CO2 and dry chem extinguishers, but they were ineffective. Using the fire hose was not an ideal option, would have put saltwater into a lot of equipment and caused considerable additional damage. Put our heads together and decided to disassemble the panel. The only thing really burning was the plastic of the big breakers. We called out for tools and a couple 5 gallon buckets of water. Had to explain over the radio to the captain exactly what we had in mind, he was a bit skeptical, but trusted us. It took a while, we all had to change out air bottles, but it worked out wonderfully. We simply removed the burning material and threw it in the buckets of water.
I can’t say I was pleased to have the fire, but it was really fulfilling to see how well the training kicked in. I couldn’t have asked for two better men to have alongside.
Upon arrival in Honolulu, the Coast Guard came aboard for an investigation. Gave us a well done for our efforts.
Kevin G

That's awesome and scary at the same time. I teach about maritime careers to high school level students and tell them about the STCW training standards for every mariner. Thanks for sharing.

I sailed the freshwater fleet (Great Lakes), fighting a fire on board is always a bit unnerving. Too much water and you put the fire out but risk sinking!

Kevin

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One thing about a shipboard fire you can't run away. Fix it or your dead in the water.

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