This is a smaller facility, within Port Newark. It is not actually in “Port Newark Container Terminal,” but a block away. Although still Port Authority property, I doubt it gets the full attention of the Port Authority’s Resources.
My 3 A/E license expired a few years ago, but I thought the International Shore Connection was common knowledge to all in the firefighting/maritime industry?
Again, why even try to go in if nobody else was in danger or at risk? Let it burn.
Unless…and this was told to me recently in my Advance Firefighting Reval by full time professional firemen…they really wanted to “get in and attack the fire, because it is fun for us”. Regardless, terrible tragedy.
Fully agree and it was a strong discussion I had with a captain on that vessel. My thoughts are that if the fire isn’t out by the time the fire teams are suited up then we should be isolating and dumping CO2. He felt sending a fire team into a dark cargohold full of cars and lashing straps while dragging a fire hose to scout the situation was better.
I was privy to a presentation by a gentleman who’s been involved with many of the recent RORO fires and my big takeaway from it was the 4 minute rule. Based off of tests and research of parking garage fires, the rule of thumb is 4 minutes before a single car on fire sets the cars adjacent to it on fire. So after 4 minutes you now have five cars on fire. 4 minutes later and you’re at 13 cars. Note that this doesn’t include vehicles on the deck above. My experience is that the decks typically have lashing holes that pass through to the deck below unless they’re a fire zone boundary.
Back to the situation in Newark, I know that one international shore connection is on the weather deck, stbd side aft of the containers up against the super structure. I can’t remember for certain, but I believe that there was another one on 3 deck stbd side shortly after you come up the stern ramp. These ships use the stern ramp as the gangway, so depending on where they were in the cargo process access could be a breeze or it could be vehicles and lashing gear chock-a-block up to the ramp opening.
Complicating matters for a CO2 release, there are internal ramps and water tight doors that you’d need to secure as well for that fire zone. Coming up the stern ramp onto 3 deck, there’s a hydraulic WTD door that goes from 3 to 6, a hydraulic WTD door that goes from 6 inside to 6 weather deck (these doors are large enough that two hostlers towing containers on chassis could pass each other, though that was not a normal cargo situation) and the hydraulic WTD on 12 deck (I mentioned this one previously as it’s where the fire boat was spraying water). These could all be closed at the door from either side, there were no remote operating stations. There are also two WTD man sized doors on 6 deck between inside and outside, as well as a fire door isolating 6 deck from the elevator vestibule. 6 deck also has the aft mooring station with two man sized WTD’s that, in my experience, were commonly left open in port. There was also a WTD on deck 10 that went out to the ramp hydraulic winch that was frequently left open as well, this one could not be closed without first going through the cargo hold. Also compounding things, the aft port stair tower has fire boundary doors from 5 deck to 12 deck that were frequently lashed open by the longshoremen while working cargo. There are also a lot of fire dampers that you would need to work. The ships only have exhaust fans for the cargo holds, no supply fans. Fresh air is admitted through natural intakes. You can see the ones for the fire zone in question on the stbd side in a vertical line. All of the dampers are located in the holds and you really have no way of knowing for sure if they’ve closed or not. The dampers used spring loaded motors that were supposed to fail shut when power is secured and they could be very temperamental.
Fighting this fire at sea would suck. In port with everything opened would be a bit of a nightmare. I feel for the firefighters… it really seems like they had no idea what they were getting into.
Sat there watching them load at that dock a few months ago, literally PUSH junk on, doesnt suprise me.
It was still going pretty good yesterday.
On the ROROs I’ve worked on in the past there are internal ramps which are all locally controlled. The air tight or water tight hydraulic ramps that create the fire boundaries have to be shut before releasing the CO2 so you have to go into the space more or less. All decks above the water line/ main deck have controls below below the ramp deck opening. This means smoke is going to come out the ramp opening down the deck to where you are standing so you’ll probably need a SCBA. Hopefully none of the ramp hydraulics/ motors over heat and hopefully no electronics or lines have melted before you could get to it. If there is a car burning through the deck right above you this may be a problem.
For the upper decks the problem is explained above. However, for the lower decks below the main deck the controls are usually above the the deck opening so they can be closed without suffocating on smoke and entering the space. Also because the ROROs are usually never near their marks especially with just cars onboard, you may be able to flood the number one or two decks without causing stability issues (however I’m not currently on a roro so you’d have to check the stability numbers). However, before using CO2 or flooding the decks completely I would try to open every fire station possible without a hose on them while pumping water out of the lower cargo holds. This is great because there are a lot of fire stations on the roros that are pointed right at the cargo and I wouldn’t need a fire team to tend them. I could use them to spot attack after opening everyone possible. Meanwhile I would be discharging everything above the main deck ASAP.
However, this instance seems like a fire in the upper decks which is alot more tricky.
This is a tragic loss of life by professionals that are trained to run into harm’s way.
I suspect that very few shoreside firemen know anything about fighting a shipboard fire, much less are experts.
Fire Departments in major US ports should have at least one team fully trained in shipboard firefighting. And incident commanders trained in managing the response of shoreside firefighters that lack adequate shipboard firefighting training.
RORO ships seem to be especially hazardous with more than their share of problems. These ships need to be better built, equipped, and operated to successfully contain fires, and stay floating on an even keel.
Ports handling ROROs obviously need Fire Department teams specifically trained to fight these types of fires on these types of ships.
Perhaps it should become a standard practice to hook up the international shore connection before cargo ops commence.
Perhaps it should be standard practice to only load cars with less than 1/8th of a tank of gas and inert the tanks.
Many cars now have plastic gas tanks. Why is this allowed?
Its been a long time since I was in the West Africa trade but we did carry a limited number of autos on our ConRo’s. Limited because they did not have car decks & cars used up deck space displacing better paying high and heavy cargo .
Problem with used cars in the Africa trade most are shipped by individuals or small lots from freight forwarders. 1200 autos I would guess have 600 or more bills of lading all with questionable particulars. Can’t trust shippers declarations on fuel tanks batteries etc. Our limit was 35 all loaded one port and physically inspected prior to loading rejects often. Inspecting 1200 prior loading not likely.
All cargo has its risk but car carrier with autos from major manufacturers much safer than used car transport.
As of Friday evening, marine fire fighting specialists were actively conducting fire suppression. Fire fighting efforts are being supported by fire agencies through the Port of New York and New Jersey region, both pierside and on the water. The fire is still contained to the upper decks of the vessel.
The vessel continues to list to the starboard side due to water build up from firefighting activities, but remains stable. Salvage teams are working to remove water from the vessel and counter the list resulting from the fire fighting activities.
That’s not a bad idea. I know that during my time on liner service ROROs that we did have the local FD take a tour of the vessel though they did not take part in any drills. I wasn’t privy to any of the discussions, comments or feedback that may have come up during the tour.
This is currently determined by the construction of the vessel and class. I don’t recall all of the details. One ship I worked on was limited to less than 1/4 tank (it may have been 1/8 but I can’t recall), the other vessel could do up to either 1/2 or 3/4. It caused issues when vehicles weren’t able to be loaded on the higher fuel tank capacity ship and had to travel on the lower fuel tank capacity ship. It takes cooperation between shore and vessel crew to make sure that this is done properly. That said, I also recall cars sitting on the dock overnight with the engines running at idle until they burned up enough fuel to be loaded.
I’m not sure how effective inerting would be as most fuel tanks are vented.
I did work with one RORO company that disconnected the batteries on all used vehicles during the lashing process. It increased the manpower needed but I don’t think it slowed cargo much. It did reduce the number of dead batteries on delivery, which is a plus. I think this probably the easiest method to reduce the fire risk on an ICE vehicle. Electric vehicles are a different matter.
Plastic fuel tanks aren’t going away. They’re lighter, don’t rust out and hold up much better in crashes. They are also better in fires, up to a point, as the plastic does a better job of insulating the fuel and reducing the fumes that will boil out. Of course, that’s only good til the fire melts through the tank, then it’s not so good.
Anyone sailing on those floating slab sided multi-level parking structures deserves hazard pay. Jus’ sayin’.
Don’t forget tippy…very very tippy. Just ask the poor engine guys on the Golden Ray.
I have done a few hundred inspections for a non-US flag state. The location and condition of the ISC was spotty at best. It was often difficult to find, intermixed with other equipment, missing the associated gasket/nuts/bolts, or in generally poor condition. I do not think they were looked at much.
I have done many internal audits on US vessels and was sometimes left shaking my head when asking what I thought were fairly basic questions and the response was along the lines of “I’ve never heard that before.”
In general, many international seafarers know the SOLAS/MARPOL/etc. general requirement but not the details in the subsidiary codes such as FSS, LSA, etc.
Even Masters and Chiefs didn’t know as much as you would expect.
Again it all depends on the circumstances. Alongside with professional firefighters on hand, the command should liaise with the senior firefighters and leave it to the experts.
An engine room fire in a Ro-Ro many years ago at sea we fought the major fire and extinguished it. The alternative, abandoning ship in old open lifeboats in a Force 7 was not very appealing. Just to spice things up one of the greasers had a heart attack during the incident. He survived.
After two days the engineers through a truely magnificent effort got us underway.
You would have hoped that the ship’s crew would have made them aware of the international shore connection if they didn’t know.
I think they mean they learned that their hose couplings were incompatible to vessel’s hydrants.
For those who are not familiar with RoRo vessel operation:
Doesn’t every foreign vessel get a USCG security exam before entering a US Port? Have the inspection team confirm that the international shore connection is at the gangway… Easy mechanism.
Not every ship is physically boarded every individual arrival in the US be it Security or PSC. USCG was last on this particular ship in March.
I would not describe the ISC as a high priority item for PSC in the US unless a particular inspector is standing next to it while bored.
A similar issue would be the proximity of the fire plan to the gangway and the presence of any signage directing an embarking fire team to the location of the fire plan if not in vicinity of the gangway. The requirement for signage is not well known and often missing.
It was just my first thought. I know it’s not a high priority to them but it’s time it became a high priority for someone, maybe the Port Authority of NY/NJ.
This isn’t the first time, about ten years ago this same thing happened here in NY, junk cars on a RoRo. I wish you could see what some of the cars look like, they often get pushed onto the ship by other junk cars. They even pack the inside of the cars with belongings sometimes.
I sat there a few months ago watching them push the junk, saw a nice R-Model Mack go up the ramp it was a shame.
Sad news.
How would an international shore connections worked here?
An international shore connection is to connect the ship’s system to a shore-side connection, not to permit larger hoses at the ships fire hydrants.
Even if a 2-1/2 inch hose is connected to a 40mm (about 1-1/2 inch) hydrant aboard it’s not going to deliver the volume and pressure that the department says was lacking.
