NTSB published its report on the grounding of an engine room fire that broke abroad on the towing vessel on the Lower Mississippi River, on March 17, 2021. The crewmembers after failing to fight the fire, evacuated to the barges and were rescued by a Good Samaritan vessel. No pollution or injuries were reported, while the damage to the vessel was estimated at $2.4 million.
The incident
On March 17, 2021, about 00:45 local time, the towing vessel was pushing 14 barges upbound on the Lower Mississippi River, about 20 miles north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, near mile 249, when fire alarms sounded in the pilothouse and throughout the vessel. Within 30 seconds of the alarm sounding, the pilot could see smoke that “grew in intensity very quickly” coming from the engine room, and he immediately activated the vessel’s general alarm.
Immediately the mate and a deckhand proceeded aft through the vessel’s interior to investigate. While walking past the crew accommodations, they banged on doors to alert the crew and ensure all were awake. When the mate reached the ECR, he looked through the window to the engine room and saw smoke and flames emanating from the starboard main engine.
He quickly returned to the chief engineer’s stateroom and told him that there was a fire in the engine room. He also radioed the pilothouse to notify the pilot of the fire, although, due to unknown reasons, radio communications between the pilothouse and personnel fighting the fire were unreliable during the fire. The mate was quickly joined by the other deckhand on duty and other crewmembers as they awoke. The crew began running out fire hoses on the starboard side of the main deck to fight the fire.
Using the vessel’s VHF radio, the captain attempted to notify the Coast Guard of the fire but did not receive a response. He was able to establish communications with the towing vessel Christopher Wilson, which was owned by the same company and happened to be about 3 miles south of the towing vessel location. The Christopher Wilson notified the towing vessel that Coast Guard Sector New Orleans had received the distress call and was attempting to respond.
Several of the windows that were in the closed position at the onset of the fire were broken by the crew during firefighting efforts. Handheld extinguishers were also directed into the engine room through open windows. The crew attempted to operate the extinguishers and the CO2 hose reel system but were unable to do so because all were located in the same space as the fire and were inaccessible due to the intensity of the smoke and flames. The engine room was not equipped with a fixed fire-extinguishing system, nor was it required by regulation to be.
Shortly after the crew began firefighting efforts, the chief engineer activated the ventilation shutdown, which stopped the engine room ventilation fans and allowed the gravity dampers in the ventilation ductwork to close.
The emergency fuel oil shutoff pull station was located on the starboard-side main deck, on the external bulkhead of the engine room. The chief engineer stated that he was able to pull the shutoff for the starboard main engine, but, due to the fire, the cable handles for the port main engine and the online generator were too hot for him to pull.
The crew could not quell the engine room fire with the hose, so it continued to grow. About 00:52, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. The pilot and crew mustered on the forward end of the vessel before being joined by the captain from the pilothouse. About 01:00, the crew of the towing vessel evacuated the vessel to the tow’s barges.
While on the barges, the crew communicated via cell phone with the captain on the Christopher Wilson, whose crew was in the process of tying off their tow to shore several miles downriver in order to better assist the distressed towing vessel. As the fire continued to spread, engulfing the towing vessels superstructure, the river current turned the tow around and pushed it downriver. About 45 minutes after the crew evacuated the towing vessel, the Christopher Wilson arrived, positioned itself alongside the barges to pick up the crew.
At 01:45, the West Baton Rouge area 911 dispatch received notification of a vessel on fire and in turn notified emergency personnel. The first responders fought the fire in concert with the crew of the Christopher Wilson and were aided by the arrival of an ExxonMobil Refinery fire boat, which had suppression foam to help extinguish the fire. By 05:05, the superstructure fire was extinguished, and by 09:40, the engine room fire was declared extinguished.
Later the same day, the Coast Guard, a certified marine surveyor, and WRBM personnel boarded the vessel to assess the damage. A tow plan was approved for the disabled vessel and tow, and the Christopher Wilson began towing the towing vessel to the company’s facility in Calvert City, Kentucky, where the vessel was determined to be a total loss.
Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the engine room fire aboard the towing vessel was the ignition of spraying diesel fuel from a main engine’s fuel system onto an uninsulated section of the engine’s exhaust system. Contributing to the severity of the fire and damage to the vessel was the inability to effectively secure ventilation to the space and fuel to the affected engine.
Lessons learned
- The towing vessel incident provides important lessons that should carefully be taken into consideration.
- Engine rooms contain multiple fuel sources, making the spaces especially vulnerable to rapidly spreading fires. Regulations for towing vessels state that “piping and machinery components that exceed 220 °C (428°F), including fittings, flanges, valves, exhaust manifolds, and turbochargers, must be insulated.” Uninsulated engine exhaust surfaces can provide an ignition source for flammable liquids that can easily develop into fires that are difficult to contain.
- Towing vessel owners and operators, Coast Guard marine inspectors, and third-party organization (TPO) towing vessel examiners should be aware of these dangers and fire risks and should regularly and thoroughly inspect equipment to ensure that measures are in place to prevent flammable liquids from coming into contact with hot surfaces.
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Source: ntsb
