By Steven Zeliff
Do you have water? Not the kind of water that land-based firefighters are accustomed to dealing with, rather navigable water. Whether on the coast or inland, waterways are a vast part of our countryside. These waterways move a multitude of types of cargo from bulk fuels to televisions to and from ports along the East and West coasts, up and down rivers, and throughout the Great Lakes. Are there waterways in your response area? Is training for a shipboard fire or other water emergency a priority? Big and small vessel fires happen nearly every day around the globe and, if they are not handled properly, they can have disastrous results. The losses are not limited to the vessel and cargo. Far too often, these emergencies result in the deaths of the vessel’s crew members, firefighters, and passengers.
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Each crew member employed by the vessel is required to go through basic shipboard emergency training to be credentialed by the National Maritime Center (NMC), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This basic training they receive is referred to as basic STCW, or Standards of Training, Certification and Watch keeping, for Seafarers. The basic STCW class has a minimal requirement of 16-hours of firefighting training along with water survival and life raft skills. During this 16-hour class, the mariner gets eight hours of classroom training and eight hours of hands-on firefighting, not a lot of time by our standards to master a skill that could kill you. So, it’s safe to say that the crew on the vessel will have limited knowledge in regard to firefighting. Many companies encourage the crew to shut down the vessel and abandon ship. As the land-based firefighter, we can use the vessel crew’s knowledge to our advantage. They know their vessel inside and out and can give valuable information to assist the fire crew to contain the fire or handle the situation.
The vessel’s crew is made up of essentially two areas, the deck/operations side and the engineering side. The deck side consists of the vessel master, boatswain, and deck hands. The vessel master is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on that vessel and will have the most knowledge for everything topside of the main deck. The engineers are led by the chief engineer, an assistant chief engineer (ACE), and enginemen. The chief engineer will have the most knowledge of everything below the main deck, which is the first continuous deck from bow (front) to the stern (rear) of the vessel. The majority of the onboard firefighting systems will be below the main deck, generally in the main engine room or emergency generator space.
Figure 1. Mezzanine Deck, Aft-Port
Wouldn’t it be nice when you pull up to a structure fire to have the resident hand you a drawing of the structure showing all entry and egress point? Well,
that piece of information is available on all licensed vessels above 200 tons. The fire and emergency plan is a drawing of the vessel and its layout, which depicts where all lifesaving equipment can be found on the vessel. The fire and emergency plan, unfortunately, is going to be in the language that coincides with that of the country under whose flag the vessel is showing. Ocean-going vessels are flagged by the port where they are registered. The country of origin is usually indicated on the stern of the vessel, where the national flag is flown. Since there is no universal language, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) devised a chart of colored pictograms to assist the international maritime community. All fire and emergency plans have these pictograms with a legend. The fire and emergency plan also has the layout for all decks. The plan will always be on each side of the superstructure (main berthing area); a copy will also be on the bridge. It should be the first thing you locate on arrival.
The layout of a vessel depends on the purpose for which the vessel was designed–cargo, cruise, fishing, and so on. Below the main deck are various spaces that house the main engines, generator spaces, and other machinery and storage; they are sectioned off into fire zones. The zones are water tight spaces that can be used to maintain vessel stability should one of those spaces get flooded during an emergency such as grounding or collision with another vessel. The zones also make very good fire boundaries, provided the crew secured the watertight latches on the doors and hatches before leaving the space. Generally, these doors, hatches, and dividers are kept latched, or dogged down, while the vessel is underway. This may not be the case while the vessel is in port or at anchor. If the crew closes these hatches and doors, the fire will be held to its space and not move out of its zone, providing the greatest amount of fire protection.
Arrival at the Fire Scene: Potential Obstacles
Access. So, you’ve arrived on scene and heavy smoke is showing from the vessel. What’s next? Access up and onboard the vessel most likely is going to be an issue. Depending on the situation, you could be on a nice large, open concreted port or you may have to be taken to the vessel. Being at a port is the ideal situation; however, this could be a challenge as well. Ports may be operated by different entities–public, private, or an authority. The port may still be in operation and, most likely, will continue to operate, even though you show up with 10 pieces of fire apparatus and personnel. Now, you have to negotiate the constant movement of haulers and cranes loading and unloading vessels. As they say, time is money; ports normally do not want to disrupt the movement of cargo. You can overcome this obstacle if you addressed it in your preplan with your local port safety division.
Command of the ship. Another obstacle is potential legal ramifications of entering and taking command of the vessel. The vessel has many stake holders that all have a vested interest in the outcome of the situation. First, there is the vessel crew who are employees of the owner of the vessel. The vessel master is in charge of that vessel until that individual relinquishes command to someone else. If your department takes command of that vessel, basically you’re taking ownership of the vessel, situation, and outcome. The vessel owners may make the decisions to abandon ship and remove the crew, leaving the vessel the responsibility of your department or jurisdiction. The vessel owners will make an insurance claim on the vessel, and the shipping companies will make an insurance claim on the freight. The question remains, who pays for the firefighting efforts and cleanup? There have been incidents in the Unites States that required thousands of gallons of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) to extinguish the fire. Does your department or jurisdiction have the financial resources for such an event? Luckily, here in the United States, you can get financial assistance through the Unites States Coast Guard (USCG) Caption of the Port (COTP). The USCG has broken the United States into districts, to include all navigable waterways. Each of the districts has a COTP assigned to it, and all of the resources of the COTP are available to your department or jurisdiction. The resources include vessels; personnel to assist in firefighting, management, and planning, and controlling the situation; and financial assistance to reimburse you or purchase items needed to control the situation. You can identify the COTP district for your jurisdiction at www.uscg.mil.
Getting equipment in position on the deck.
Your department should not use the gear on the vessel. Although there is certain required firefighting equipment on the vessel, you cannot trust that it has been maintained and is in working order. You will need fire pumps to fight the fire and for dewatering, hoses, and spare self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) bottles. Most vessels do not have a crane to assist with this, and the gangways (steps to vessel) are not designed to easily move large equipment up and down. A hauling or lifting system will have to be designed and implemented quickly in the early stages of the size-up. Once the system has been implemented, equipment can be transferred onto the deck and firefighting may commence. While the haul system is being set up, that is a good time for the incident commander to get onboard the vessel and decide a plan of action, using the vessels crew to assist in any way possible. The crew knows the vessel and all of its systems. Depending on what the situation is, you may decide to fight the fire through an indirect attack. If the fire is in a cargo hold that has sprinklers ,the fire attack could be as simple as hooking up to the vessel’s fire main system. Every engine that has the potential to be first due into a port should have a portable international shore connection (ISC), which consists of a universal four-bolt flange adaptor with your department’s threads. Each side of the vessel will have a shoreline connection that consists of the vessel’s threads. These threads can range from national pipe to national hose and anything in between. Using the ISC negates the different threads and being incompatible. In your size-up, locate the vessel’s ISC, which has a four-bolt flange and the vessels shoreline threads. Connect the vessel’s ISC to the shoreline connection, and bolt your ISC to it with a gasket. You are now connected and can supply the vessel’s fire main system.
Water and the Vessel’s Stability
Generally speaking, land-based fire crews are not concerned with the amount of water used at a structure fire. As long as we have a good water supply, we will continue to put water on the fire until the fire is under control. However, on a vessel, this can make a very dangerous situation and potentially capsize the vessel, which has happened in numerous vessel fires around the world. Every vessel has ballast tanks that are used to control the stability of a vessel. They are located forward, aft, and on each side of the hull. They are filled with seawater to stabilize the vessel. While fighting the fire using large amounts of water, stability can and will be compromised. Once the water enters the hull of the vessel, gravity takes over, and the water will go to the lowest point in the vessel. The water, once in the hull is known as free surface water, meaning it’s not contained in the ballast tanks. This can become a very disastrous situation if the water starts to pool to one side or the other of the vessel and create a list (tilt) which will pull the water in the hull to the listing side of the vessel and potentially cause the vessel to capsize.
A good indicator of a list is watching the draft marking on the stern and bow of the vessel. The draft marks are 6 inches high and 6 inches apart; the water line is measured at the bottom of the respective number. The easiest way to check for a list is to look at the stern of the vessel, as the draft markings are on the port (left) and starboard (right) sides of the stern. If the draft marks are not equal, there is a listing condition. Make it a priority to remove or pump out the water trapped in the hull. You can use the pumps on the vessel if they are operational. If they are not operational, other pumps will have to be brought onboard to dewater the vessel. Dewatering is just as important as fighting the fire. Capsizing a vessel creates a whole new set of issues that can have long lasting environmental impact.
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The best way to control a shipboard emergency is to preplan with all the potential agencies available. Consider what may happen and have a plan to mitigate that situation. Just as we preplan buildings, we need to preplan for shipboard emergencies. Visit your local port or marina and ask for a site visit. If a tour of a vessel is possible, get onboard the various vessels that use and frequent the port and discuss ways to control various situations. While onboard, ask to see the vessels’ safety systems and become familiar with the layout and areas that are more potentially a fire risk, and locate the shore connections and the fire and emergency plans. The only way to increase your understanding and knowledge on ship board fires is to train for these incidents.
BIO
STEVEN ZELIFF, a 30-year veteran of the fire service, is the lead maritime firefighting and shipboard emergency instructor at the Unites States Army Transportation School at the Joint Base Langley, Eustis, Fort Eustis, Virginia, and an adjunct instructor for the Virginia Department of Fire Programs with over 30 years in the fire service.
