Helicopter deployment of shipboard firefighters

gCaptain
1

I am very curious about how many port states are capable of deploying specifically trained shipboard firefighters after reading about the latest car carrier fire aboard MS Thames Highway offshore of Germany. Is this something that is possible elsewhere in Europe or around the world?

I suspect that in the USA most USCG RCC’s would be hard pressed to get a few dozen SCBA bottles or a hundred gallons of foam concentrate delivered to a nearby airport in a few hours and couldn’t contemplate accessing a fly-away capable firefighting crew. The closes analogous capability I’m aware of in the US is a few sets of sling-loadable of synthetic towing gear in Alaska owned and maintained by the state (not federal) government and the USCG’s (HAZMAT only) National Strike Force crews.

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They tried this on the Caribbean Fantasy without success. See Fire aboard Ro/Ro Passenger Vessel Caribbean Fantasy

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Doesn’t Resolve offer professional firefighters and salvage teams to ships?

There must be others too.

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It seems like the priority would be crew rescue, then potential for environmental contamination.

After that, isn’t it just about money? Seems to me that the insurance industry would be leading the way if there was a dollar to be saved… Why wouldn’t they be responsible attemps to secure the scene?

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I presume SMIT does too. From what I understand about European geography they could have potentially been mobilized to the casualty in the linked article but I presume that the fly-away crew was German.