IUMI’s commitment to improving fire protection on container ships through its LPC is commendable. The working group’s active participation in the IMO’s Ship Systems and Equipment Correspondence Group demonstrates IUMI’s dedication to advocating for the interests of cargo and hull insurers, according to IUMI.
Onboard Fire
In the middle of this work, news broke about the fire aboard the containership Maersk Frankfurt (5,500 TEU, built in 2024). On July 19, the MRCC Mumbai received a distress call from the Maersk Frankfurt 50 miles off Karwar regarding a major fire on board. A fire had broken out on the deck cargo in the forward part of the ship and was spreading quickly. Tragically, one crew member lost his life but fortunately, there were no other casualties.
Even though the sea was relatively calm, the coastguard vessel’s task was made quite difficult by the swell from the stern. As a result, the crew on board the coastguard vessel had trouble trying to direct the jet of water from the monitor onto the seat of the fire. Unfortunately, this greatly impaired the extinguishing effect.
It appears that the Maersk Frankfurt is not equipped with fixed monitors that are able to reach all cargo positions. Current IMO regulations do not require such monitors to be installed. This raises the question of how the fire would have spread if this vessel had been out in the open sea without the help of the Indian Coast Guard.
Successful firefighting depends first and foremost on the cooling effect of the water which must be directed as early as possible and continuously at the seat of the fire. The short video shows the enormous extinguishing effect of the water when it falls directly on the fire. Although external assistance vessels such as salvage tugs or coastguard ships have powerful monitors, they cannot pump large quantities of water accurately due to the swell and their position.
In the SSE Correspondence Group, the IUMI Working Group has made the concrete proposal that container ships must be equipped in such a way that every position on deck can be reached by two monitors. In our proposals, the onboard monitors would have to pump 2,000 l/min and, in the absence of wind, 75% of the volume delivered would have to reach its intended target. This capacity of 2,000 l/min per monitor is significantly less than that of coastguard vessels (estimated at 10,000 l/min).
However, the monitors can be targeted so that they continuously reach and cool the seat of the fire, thereby multiplying their firefighting effect.Given the intensity of the fire, this attempt to establish a barrier is only a very modest measure. For cases such as this, the Working Group has proposed that vessels should be subdivided into effective vertical fire compartments. However, this proposal was discarded as not being “cost-efficient” during the FSA (Formal Safety Assessment) stage. If one were to ask the crew of the Maersk Frankfurt for their opinion, one might expect them to have a rather different view of matters.
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Source: IUMI
