Two Firefighters Die in Cargo Ship Fire at Port in Newark

If 50 cents in th dollar Johnny speaks as he writes I’m sure at some stage his education would have been advanced by the application of a size 13 shoe. The aftermath may have required surgical intervention.

To LI_Domer: New ships, fire departments, vehicles, and containers should indeed be built to sets of world-wide standards that may need to be built in consideration of all interfaces between different types. But, that also means a lot of refitting of existing ships and fire trucks. Making any change to existing vehicles that may become ro-ro cargo probably can’t be done.

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Sorry, but I don’t know how many such incidents there have been. However, since you seem to be well-informed, perhaps you could gather and analyze all these unfortunate accidents. We would probably learn many interesting pieces of information. For example I am very interested in the causes of these accidents and what the safety recommendations were.

Do you know what will happen to a black steel pipe that occasionally comes into contact with seawater? But that’s not the most important thing; I’m more interested in knowing which version of the system was ready for use and what served as a kind of backup? What the procedures were?



Looks like it got hot.

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There was not two versions, it was a standard, SOLAS approved, low-pressure CO2 system. There was a short pipe fitted with a valve that connected into the CO2 piping with a fire hose connection at the other end.

Because it was designed as a CO2 system using water presumably would have been sub-optimal and was not considered as an option to be used instead of CO2. Aside from the required annual inspection of the CO2 system there was no testing.

There were no written procedures for it’s use. If it’s use is considered worthy of a discussion should start a new thread because it’s a bit off-topic.

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I see what you did there…but you left off: in the heat/noise at 0600 and out at 1930 because “you’re paid a 12hr day”, that somehow turns into 13.5hr??

LOL, truuuuf! You spent enough time down there to know one of my major gripes…how is this a safe space if the damn door is tied open?

The physics of fire and burning cars is not altered by whether one has sailed on a particular type of vessel or not.

It is not a postulation to state that a large group of cars on fire will not be extinguished by a few men and a fire hose. Most certainly, the outcome of this attempt is not dependent on some internet monkey’s sailing experience.

OK boomer.

How was that system labeled on the Fire Control and Safety Plan, and was there any mention of it in the Fire Training Manual?

Many statements in this thread are off-topic, and I was not the first one to bring up the issue of the dual purpose of the fixed CO2 fire-fighting system. I am also not authorized to separate this issue but the topic is quite interesting to me for many reasons.

According to Grimaldi it was a Ports America vehicle that started the fire.

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Oh my.

Looks like it’s set up to be towed out of here any day now

Not surprising that a p.o.s. stevedore vehicle could have been the cause of a fire. I’ve watched crap vans, cars and many other vehicles load ships that would never pass any kind of state vehicle inspection. It is way past the time to start regulating these.

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This is the least surprising thing I’ve ever read. I worked at PA in Savannah and the vehicles they give the ro/ro superintendents aren’t even good enough for the junkyards.


PM285_OctNov2023_digital_edition (1).pdf (339.1 KB)

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A post was split to a new topic: Hearing on Port Newark ship fire — what happened on board, at dockside?