The Hazards of Shipboard Firefighting

By THOMAS GUGLIOTTI

Fires that occur on ships can be a challenging task for all fire crews. One aspect of the danger involved derives from the small, windowless compartments that allow for the buildup of heat and smoke, making navigation of already narrow passageways that much more difficult. This article will discuss the staffing levels and training to consider for anyone who may be called to battle one of these fires.

• Shipboard Firefighting: Realities and Risks
• SHIPBOARD FIREFIGHTING: THE BASICS
• Shipboard Solutions for the Land-Based Firefighter

Staffing

Safe staffing levels have been easy to determine for structural responses and are outlined in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1710, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments. In addition, NFPA 1405, Guide for Land-Based Fire Departments that Respond to Marine Vessel Fires, provides guidance for fire departments responsible for marine firefighting. However, what kind of staffing do you need for a ship fire? Is it a different response for a cargo ship, aircraft carrier, 100-foot yacht, or submarine? The answer is less clear, likely because these incidents occur at a fairly low frequency.

In addition to being low frequency, these incidents are high-risk events with limited decision-making time. However, we have had some significant fires in recent years onboard the USS Miami in 2012 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and in 2020 onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard at the Naval Base in San Diego, California. The investigations into these two incidents have provided us with valuable information.

The most recent, deadly incident took place on the night of July 5, 2023, at Port Newark in Newark, New Jersey, where two Newark Fire Department (NFD) members were killed in the response. The NFD staffs a total of around 570 firefighters, 16 engines, eight trucks, and one rescue company. It likely has more than 100 firefighters on duty at any given time. My agency runs only seven firefighters per shift, including a dispatcher. We staff one engine, one ambulance, and a light rescue. Our first-due mutual aid has four firefighters assigned a shift between an engine and a ladder truck. Next due is the naval base department, which is to be staffed at 15 firefighters, per the U.S. Navy 8010 standard. We are bordered by a smaller city that staffs 20 firefighters per shift. Within the first 10 to 15 minutes, we are lucky to have 40 firefighters available to us.

Through scenario-based training, our department found that, to combat a major ship fire similar to the one that occurred onboard the USS Miami, we would need proper staffing to operate a handline on every level of a vessel continuously for one hour. We now send three-member teams on each hoseline and rotate crews out every 15 minutes. If you operate handlines on the fire level, the level above, and the level below, you will need 36 firefighters just to keep handlines in service. These firefighters are required go to rehab for 20 minutes after using just one 30-minute bottle.

Additional resources that are needed include a rapid intervention (RIT)/firefighter assist and search team; a truck company to establish high points for down firefighter extrication; another RIT or search team, which will vary in size given the size and layout of the vessel; and a dedicated self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) refilling station. Our alarm card also includes a response from the state’s Department of Energy and Department of Environmental Protection; two basic life support ambulances; a paramedic; and, if the ship is in the water, a dive team. This doesn’t even touch the recommended incident management structure required to facilitate the response needed in these incidents (Figure 1). For our agency, a fourth alarm would bring in the necessary resources to maintain this operation for one hour and fill all the other needed assignments; this is more than 100 firefighters, some responding from nearly an hour away.

These are long-term events and, absent immediate life threats, should be approached calmly and methodically, especially if it is something your agency has done little to prepare for. From my experience, a small, smoldering fire onboard a vessel can easily overtax a first-due company and require additional resources, depending on the location and conditions within the vessel.

Familiarization/Training

Our members are on vessels doing inspections and fire prevention every day. We have ships in various stages of construction as well as commissioned vessels receiving repairs and updates. Unfortunately, a vast majority of departments responsible for protecting large vessels do not have the luxury of being on them as frequently as we are. If you have large vessels in your response district, make every effort to get on and explore them.

A 2003 study by San Antonio (TX) Fire Department Captain William Mora, author of Preventing Firefighter Disorientation: Enclosed Structure Tactics for the Fire Service, found that 77 percent of line-of-duty deaths occur when fast, aggressive interior attacks are made on enclosed structures. Mora defined enclosed structures as “large buildings with inadequate windows or doors to allow prompt ventilation and emergency evacuation.”1

Most large ships meet this description. How do you enter a submarine to fight a fire? Through the chimney! The only way in is through the topside hatches, from which all the superheated gases and smoke are escaping. The enclosed areas onboard these ships trap heat and smoke and can become easily disorienting for firefighters unfamiliar with the layout.

Do you have enough hose to make a stretch into a large vessel? The USS Bonhomme Richard was 814 feet long with 14 levels. Part of the USS Bonhomme Richard investigation revealed that the initial attack crew experienced pressure issues from someone kicking a ball valve closed. The zero visibility, high heat, and low air supply led to the initial attack team having to retreat.2 Do you have to make the stretch? If not, are your firefighters familiar with onboard fire suppression systems they may have to use?

Our agency invested in dozens of thermal imaging cameras so that all on-duty personnel as well as some of our mutual-aid companies can be equipped. We prestage hose bundles attached to our fire mains to ensure a line can reach every inch of the vessel. In addition, obtain the blueprints of the large vessels for which you are responsible, develop preplans, run tabletop exercises with your companies, and get your firefighters onboard so the first time they are on these ships isn’t when the ship is burning.

When ships are in port, many things can affect them. At our facility, we have various types of service lines running into the ships to support construction; this makes entering and exiting them in full personal protective equipment more restrictive. Something as simple as your SCBA dimensions may mean the difference between being able to enter a hatch with it on or having to take it off. One of our mutual-aid partners changed its brand of SCBA and found out later that its members are now unable to enter the ships without having to take off their SCBA. This takes time, allowing fire to grow, especially when entering through a vertical hatch.

Passageways that may normally have six to seven feet of headroom may only have five feet or less because of the buildup of service lines. These ventilation hoses, gas lines, and electrical supply cables melt during firefighting operations, covering crews and firefighting equipment with melted plastic and exposed wires, posing a significant entanglement hazard. It is important to maintain your firefighters’ proficiency in operating in blackout conditions and escaping entanglement. The ability to maintain your calm in this situation can mean the difference between survival and perishing.

The hallways and rooms onboard vessels are much smaller than the ones we are used to in land-based structures. Firefighters need to be comfortable working in tight spaces with not a lot of room to move. Although the vessel itself may feel like a confined space, it is also filled with actual confined spaces. Hazardous gases can collect in these spaces and pose significant health and fire hazards. If you are responsible for protecting large vessels, identify your confined space rescue team and make sure they are proficient in the types of tanks present. These spaces do not just pose a risk under fire conditions; they should be preplanned for potential nonfire rescue incidents as well.

It is common practice to use cranes when removing injured workers from ships. We routinely use cranes as high points and three-to-one rope systems to extricate patients. If you are responsible for first-due response to a shipyard, your department should have an advanced level of rope rescue training. Also, establish relationships with shipyard riggers and crane operators, who can offer a wealth of knowledge and be eager to help in an emergency.

It is important to maintain a variety of technical rescue equipment because these ships can throw various unpredictable situations at you. For example, anywhere within a vessel that requires a ladder to access is going to require a rope system to extricate an immobile patient. Our department uses multiple types of technical rescue immobilization devices and artificial high directional devices.

Train with your mutual-aid departments and plan to integrate with multiple agencies during these events. This integration must include common communications systems with redundancies. Have you ever gone to a large-scale drill or incident and communication hasn’t been an issue? Can your radios transmit to the command post from the inside of a vessel, possibly in a level below the water line? Do all agencies have a common accountability system capable of handling 100-plus responders? Address these questions as part of preplanning a major fire onboard a large vessel.

Familiarize yourself with common naval terminology. Plain language is difficult when you are entering a shipyard. Learn terms like “aft,” “stern,” “port,” “starboard,” “brow,” and “bilge.” If you are interfacing with the U.S. Navy, find someone who spent some time with the Navy to act as an interpreter, since many naval terms do not translate to civilian firefighting.

No firefighter’s life is worth the cost of a ship. Protect your firefighters the best you can. Preplan your hazards. Identify technical rescue resources you may need and update your alarm cards to account for the staffing needed for these incidents. Continue training your firefighters to work in zero visibility and escape entanglement, and have them be comfortable in tight working spaces.

Do your best to get permission to tour these vessels and see the layout firsthand. If possible, get permission to run training exercises on the ships. Most importantly, if you happen to be faced with a fire onboard a large vessel, don’t risk your firefighters’ lives to save a ship if there aren’t lives to be saved.

References

1. Mora, William. U.S Firefighter Disorientation Study 1979-2001, page 4, July 2003. http://tkolb.net/FireReports/FirefighterDisorientationStudyJuly2003.pdf.

2. Command Investigation into the Fire Onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, 12 July, 2021, page 33. Retrieved from https://www.secnav.navy.mil/foia/readingroom/HotTopics/BHR%20and%20MFR%20Investigations/For%20Release%20BHR%20Command%20Investigation%20(20%20Oct%2021).pdf.

THOMAS GUGLIOTTI has been employed as an industrial firefighter/EMT in a shipyard since 2018. He also works as a paid-on-call firefighter with the Webster (MA) Fire Department and has been a volunteer with the Muddy Brook Fire Department in Woodstock, Connecticut, since 2008, where he is a captain as well as the department’s training officer. Gugliotti has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Connecticut.