# Fire down below.



## rickzek (Aug 28, 2005)

1st June 1973 Anco Soverign 0600 hrs alarm bells ring.Nothing to worry 
about its boat drill.Crew musters and all hell is let loose.The ship is on fire. 
Those of us who have had been through this before wait for instructions.
There seems to be some confusion on the bridge.The fire is in the engine room
which is sealed on a time lock. Noone knows how too bypass the timer.
Port and starboard fire crews at the well practised drills await entry into the enigine room.We wait and wait for the locks to open.Co in front with his north star torch ready to charge into the engine room. Fire crew get ready 
load scream smoke teriffic heat close door very quiclkly. The Co some what singed minus his torch tells the bridge to turn on the CO2 .The bridge asks for arepeat of the message ,the Co then says 'I MEAN WHAT DO WE DO' we can not gain access to the engine room.CO2 would have killed every body in the accomadation good call by the bridge.
Remuster on boat deck. Lower boats send distress call. Now with have a problem , how do we get in the engine room. All none essential crew to stand
bye to leave vessel.Fire crew muster on the stern the donkeyman has an 
idea go in through the lazeret and along the prop shaft. First team goes in finds the fire and attack it air runs low so team 2 goes in myself and another AB paddy with instruction not to spray the generator as it was white hot. Never tell a paddy not to do some thing because he will just for the hell of it.

It is the starboard genei spray with hose and damp down. Some one else is behind us putting out the electric fires that started in the cables.
All ended well just a damaged engine room. But no questions got asked about
the near miss with the CO2 plus some other strange things happened on that
vessel but thats another story..
I think it made Anco think about the sealed engine room and change the way fires got tackled. That torch was found melted into the grid just inside the engine room door.
would it have done to the Co.


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## Nick Balls (Apr 5, 2008)

Great Stuff rickzek ! Anyone who has first hand experience of an ER Fire knows just how scary and difficult the situation is. Take heed first trippers and 
never underestimate the importance of drills. Never under estimate the speed of destruction nor the difficulty of undertaking fire fighting with the limited resources you have available.


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## hamishb (Oct 23, 2008)

Hi rikzek,
This brings back memories of a fire on the BPTC British Might, time would be late 1960 or early 1961, Sorry cannot be precise, here goes as I remember it.
We were steaming along in a warm part of the ocean possibly Indian, one Saturday evening, I remember that because we had boat drill that day
The off duty mates and engs, were having a beer in the 2nd mates cabin,we had a ration of one case for 7 days. The 2nd mate was a rather large gent and was known as the Duke of Thames Dittion, a real gent.
Any how I digress, we were enjoying our chat and trying to keep cool as there was no air conditioning in these days
The alarm bells are ringing, fire stations.
2nd mate says"tut tut I wouldn't be atall surprised if this is a prank of the old man 2 board of trade sports in one day" but we started to go to our stations, then the lights wet out. S**t hat made everyone move quickly.
I went to my post at the forward air compressor and waited for the 2nd mate and instructions, It took 2 men to start that beast. No instructions came, there were no phones or radios then.
After a while when no one made any contact and as the engine was stopped I made my way to the engine room. 
I was met at the door by all the Indian crew charging out of the door.
They had apparantely invaded the engine room and had been hunted out by the Chief.
When I eventually arrived at the scene of the fire which turnerd out to be in the boiler room the fire was extinguished.
The fire had been in the lagging of the engine exhaust pipe under the floorplates of the boiler room.
The donkeyman had spotted the fire starting and called the 2nd engineer to investigate,as the 2nd was trying to find the source of the fire the blaze erupted under the plates between him and the boiler room door, luckily the donkeyman used the 20 gallon extinguisher to make a path through the flames to allow the 2nd to escape. 
As we were all standing in the boiler room trying to figure out what had happened and what to do next, a shower of almost boiling hot water rained down on us. The butler and the stewards had rigged up a firehose to the seawater header tank for the sanitry system, opened the valve and poured the water in through the fiddely which then ran over the hot gratings getting hotter as it came down. Lucily no one was injured.
Since with the exception of the 2nd engineer we were all dressed in whites you can imagine the state of the uniforms.
Now we are dead ship and I have just remembered roughly where we were.
Since the boilers were shut down and all the auxilliaries were steam we had no power, no lights, a glow from emergency batteries, no ventilation fans, so it was quite warm down there.
After getting into playsuits we started to look for the cause of the fire.
After a fairly long search the cause was found to be a fracture in the boiler fuel supply pipe.
This had not been immediately noticed as it was quite small and the area very badly lit, but the fuel had saturated the insulation on the pipe and also the lagging of the exhaust pipes under the plates which duly caught alight.
All the insulation was removed from the fuel pipes in the boiler room and the defective pipe byepassed.
Now came the trick of raising steam from dead ship, and how lucky we were.
When the hand fuel pump was cranked up there was fuel pouring out of one of the pipe joints, this was tightened up and pressure applied again, success no leaks. Very gently steam was raised and feed pumps started,
relief all round at that, then eventually all other plant started, start up B&W and resume passage.
All this took about 30 hours and we could only work for about 20 minutes at a time due to the heat.
I remembered about halfway through this roughly where we were and that was between Noumea, New Caledonia and Singapore.
I remember because I wasn't on watch as the 2nd engineer's junior as nornal, I was on daywork assisting the Chief with temporary repairs to the crack in the bottom of the no 6 center cargo tank, might tell that tale some day.
Hamish.


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## rickzek (Aug 28, 2005)

Fire onboard is afunny thing the drill we practised on the Anco boats was
totally wrong to fight a fire in the engine room and lessons must have been learned.It could have been so much different in it had not been for the 
donkeyman.
Rickzek.


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## hamishb (Oct 23, 2008)

Hi again rickzek,
I am convinced the donkeyman saved that 2nd engs life! 
Hamish.


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## John Campbell (Aug 30, 2005)

There was a short Fire Training Film called "Fire Down Below" if I recall correctly made by BP using a BTC tanker and crew. It would in the early 70,s.

It was very good for its time and I wonder if any of our ex BP colleagues can recall its production and who starred in it.
JC


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

John,
I do indeed recall that safety film, however from memory I'm sure it was made either in the late 50s or early 60s as they used a 12000dwt ship in the production.
Although it's a safety film, it's what's going on in the background of every scene that's the most interesting/nostalgic.
Just wish I could get hold of a copy!


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## Trevor Clements (May 6, 2007)

Nothing funny about fire at sea. The film may have been OK perhaps training for an engine room fire, but when the cargo is burning and its 4 star petrol that is a different matter. British Trent 1993, 9 killed, including my son.
Trevor.


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## billyboy (Jul 6, 2005)

I agree, Nothing funny about a ship on fire. The thought of it scares the hell out of me as most ships are unequipped to deal with it anyway. Hence the fire brigade being ferried aboard in the Channel to deal with it by Lifeboats on various occasions.


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## rickzek (Aug 28, 2005)

May be i should have used the word strange instead of funny, the point i
was trying to pass on was that some one in a drawing office put a 
fire fighting plan together and thought it would do the job.
The fire on the SOVERIGN was in the lower engine room but the drills were 
carried out several decks above the fire . We all know heat rises and every thing else with it making it imposible to gain entry. Also the fact that the 
engine room was locked down till 0700 or 0800 hrs. This was time waisted as the fire took hold and nothing could be done.Perhaps real fires were not
in the origonal equation .


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## Trevor Clements (May 6, 2007)

One other observation. I did spend the final years of my career in Fire and Gas detection, more gas than fire I would be the first to admit. However a constant theme of the survey and engineering phase of such projects in many cases (not all) was the desire by those holding the purse strings to minimise the costs. Quite often recommendations made in the interests of safety were overruled on a cost benefit basis, and it sometimes seemed to us that the decisions were being taken by people with virtually no knowledge of the possible scenarios which could arise or of the chemistry and physics of gases or the propagation of fires.

Trevor.


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## rickzek (Aug 28, 2005)

One more thing that day 36 years ago i still remember looking around the sea 
before going down to the fire and thinking how empty it was and would any
one find us. When i came back up it was like being in the pool of London.
Ships of every size from ocean liners to small fishing boats all around us wanting to give assistance. I did not know who they were but now say thanks to all those that stood off ready to assist.


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## John Campbell (Aug 30, 2005)

Some of our older members who served in T2s in the 50s will recall the portable fire fighting foam which we were required to use and thank god never had the need. 

We had three fire hoses linked up to a mixing device with a a hopper into which we had to pour cans of dry powder . We got good foam when we eventually assembled this device but there was only one hose and it took a fair amount of time to prepare and start up. 

Later this dry powder was substituted with liquid which was mixed using an educ tor. These 4 gallon cans were stored in the center castle and down aft. The liquid I was led to believe was made from cattle blood etc and smelt like it.

I wonder if any fires were ever put out with those devices. 
JC


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

John,
Foam mixture is still made from cattle blood/liquidised gizzards etc and even today is either stored in dedicated tanks or in jerrycans with which you use an eductor connect to a special 'branch' and the fire main.


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## Nick Balls (Apr 5, 2008)

Really James! I have not seen that type for a good few years!
Im only familiar with the synthetic AFFF Foam and also the Alcohol Resistant variety used as with the carriage of bulk Methanol .

Any thoughts anybody ?


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

A little bit of foam goes a long way. The sister ship to the one I was on suffered a foam tank failure dumping one thousand gallons of foam in the after foam room. Most of the foam got into the bilge. The crew started to pump the liquid into empty drums when a unsupervised crew member from the engine department tried to help out by using water to get the dried foam off the bulkheads. The resulting mess required that the helpful person had to be transfered off of the vessel and became my problem for the next few months. (The crew wanted to do bodily harm to this person). 
Later in the year I had the same problem with a fracture in the foam tank. We were able to pump the tank out into empty drums before having the liquid get into the bilge. After the tank repairs the USCG wanted to witness a test of the foam system. The space used for this test was behind the house. From the time the start button was depressed and the valves opened and pressing the stop button as soon as the pumps started the foam filled the deck and overflowed over the fish plate into the water and on the dock. Even with the USCG onboard we had to call the Coast Guard for the foam spill. We left the dock and went to sea to clean the mess up. On returning back to the dock the foam that did not get removed was let to dry and peeled off in sheets.


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

Nick Balls said:


> Really James! I have not seen that type for a good few years!
> Im only familiar with the synthetic AFFF Foam and also the Alcohol Resistant variety used as with the carriage of bulk Methanol .
> 
> Any thoughts anybody ?


My present ship has AFFF, however I'm sure I was on ship a couple of years ago which still had the old Protein stuff. The Protein type made from blood etc is still legal as far as I'm aware, however they're moving towards synthetic protein foam due to the risk of biological contamination.
You certainly never mistake the smell...


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