Tackling the scourge of fires on board ships
FIRES onboard have always been one of the greatest fears of mariners. They are still a major cause of lost vessels, lives and cargoes, as was mentioned recently in this column.
Fires that start or spread to the cargo hold can be particularly difficult to put out. Non-profit organisation Safetytech Accelerator has therefore moved to focus on reducing fire outbreaks in the first place, and has launched a multi-year collaborative programme incorporating the use of technology for the task.
The programme aims to expedite the adoption of technology and best practices by identifying specific opportunities where technology can make a difference, identifying technological solutions, undertaking trials, and developing best practices and recommendations. It has already started working on solutions for early fire detection in cargo holds.
The programme, called the Cargo Fire and Loss Innovation Initiative (CFLII), is gaining significant traction in the industry. It has received the support of Cosco Shipping Lines, Evergreen Line, HMM, Lloyd’s Register, Maersk, the Offen Group, Ocean Network Express and Seaspan. Referred to as “anchor partners”, these parties represent around half the total liner shipping market.
The marine insurers are also getting on board. Last week, it was announced that major UK maritime insurers, UK P&I Club and TT Club, had become the first two insurers to sign up to CFLII. The UK P&I Club is a major mutual marine liability insurer, and TT Club, an important independent provider of mutual insurance and related risk-management services to the international transport and logistics industry.
Stuart Edmonston, loss prevention director at UK P&I Club, said: “We are really excited to join this initiative, to roll our sleeves up and get involved with the other anchor partners. Fires on board container ships keep happening with depressing regularity, often resulting in tragic loss of life and catastrophic damage to ship and cargo.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
“A large proportion of these fires are completely preventable, and we find that losses could have been mitigated by better practices. This is an industry-wide problem that requires collaboration. The only way to improve safety is to work together, share ideas and identify and utilise modern technological solutions.”
His comments make the point that prevention is better than cure. Mike Yarwood, managing director of loss prevention at TT Club, echoed this view: “As an insurer of many elements of the container supply chain, we have long campaigned for improved certainty for classification, declaration and packing of cargo in containers. We look forward to engaging with fellow partners to improve safety and certainty of (outcomes) in the supply chain.”
Nick Gross, global container ships segment director at Lloyd’s Register and chair of the Maritime Cargo Fire and Loss Initiative, said: “I’m very excited to have UK P&I and TT Club join CFLII, now bringing in the insurer’s perspective to our work with the other anchor partners, to combat the risk of cargo fires and to make container shipping safer and more sustainable.”
Safetytech Accelerator has drawn up CFLII to have a broad technology scope, and to encompass three significant topics of concern: onboard cargo control, rapid detection of and response to onboard fires, and the challenges created by the increasing scale of vessels.
Onboard cargo control
This part of the CFLII covers the proper loading, securing and monitoring of the cargoes during transit.
But while this focus is entirely correct, there needs to be more robust control over what cargo is being put into particular containers. Misdeclaration of hazardous and highly combustible cargo remains a serious problem.
Detection of and response to onboard fires
The second area covers the ability to rapidly detect fires and prevent their spread through effective onboard responses, particularly on cargo vessels such as container ships and car-carriers.
That response should be focused on technology that does not involve crew putting themselves at risk trying to tackle these blazes. Seafarers are trained in firefighting, but they are not professional firefighters.
Moreover, the nature of fires in container stacks makes them incredibly difficult to fight. Special lances have been developed to penetrate containers and inject foam into them; this is a major advancement, but getting to containers in a stack is difficult and dangerous.
The small crews on today’s vessels can be expected to deal with a galley fire or a blaze that breaks out in the crews’ quarters, but it is asking too much to expect them to put out a fire in the container stacks.
Harking back to last week’s column on autonomous ships, tomorrow’s ships may have very small crews or no crew at all. So the industry needs to be looking at installed, remotely-controlled autonomous systems.
Handling today’s large-scale vesssels
The third topic of concern to CFLII relates to the challenges created by the increasing scale of vessels. In other words, if a serious cargo fire breaks out today on board a vessel carrying more than 10,000 40-foot containers, the blaze is unlikely to be extinguished without external intervention. A fleet of tugs with high-capacity firefighting monitors is needed, and even then, there’s no guarantee the ship can be saved.
If this new initiative results in ships having integral systems that can effectively fight fires in container stacks, then it will have justified its existence.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
