THE US NATIONAL Transportation Safety Board has released its final report into a fire on board a Grimaldi ro-ro/container ship that resulted in the death of two firefighters and loss of the vessel.
The Board pinpointed the cause of the fire as the inappropriate use by stevedores of a modified Jeep as a pusher vehicle in the Grande Costa D’Avorio garage decks while the ship was loading at Port Newark, New Jersey on 23 July 2023. The Jeep’s transmission fluid overheated, boiled over and ignited on the hot engine surface.
Vessel crewmembers attempted to put out the fire using portable fire extinguishers but were unsuccessful. The captain ordered the vessel’s fixed CO2 fire extinguishing system to be activated. The crew attempted to seal the garage decks where the CO2 had been released to allow the CO2 to smother the fire, but they were unable to close a large rampway door that was controlled from a single panel inside the garage where the fire was located.
Land-based firefighters arrived on scene. While attempting to put out the fire, two of the land-based firefighters likely became disoriented, unable to find their way out, and were lost in one of the smoke-filled garage decks and died. Six additional emergency responders were injured during the firefighting and rescue operations. The damage to the 2011-built vessel was estimated to be over US$23 million.
The NTSB found also contributing to the severity of the fire was the Newark Fire Division’s lack of marine vessel firefighting training, which resulted in an ineffective response and led to the firefighter casualties.
The Board has made safety recommendations to nine companies and authorities:
- to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to inform their field personnel of the circumstances of the Grande Costa D’Avorio fire and provide guidance in proper enforcement of the powered industrial truck requirements at marine terminals and during longshoring operations to assure safe and healthy working conditions.
- to the Newark Fire Division and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the American Association of Port Authorities, the International Association of Firefighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and the National Volunteer Fire Council, to improve land-based firefighting departments’ marine vessel firefighting training and familiarity.
- to ensure that shoreside personnel are aware of what to do in the event of a fire on board a vessel, NTSB recommended that Ports America and American Maritime Services develop policies, per 29 Code of Federal Regulations 1917.30 and 29 Code of Federal Regulations 1918.100, for such emergencies, including accounting for all employees.
- in addition, a recommendation to Grimaldi Deep Sea, the ship owner, to inventory all their vessels to identify all openings that are part of a fire boundary and modify their vessels so that the openings are capable of being closed from outside the protected space.
- that RINA Services, the vessel classification society, revise their procedures for review and approval of vessel plans to ensure compliance with all applicable international regulations.
- the US Coast Guard submit a proposal to the International Maritime Organization to clarify the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea regulation requiring that all openings capable of admitting admit air into or of allowing gas to escape from a protected space can be closed from outside the protected space applies, regardless of their expected operational condition when in port or at sea.
Separately, another Grimaldi ro-ro/container ship, the 2000-built Grande Brasile which caught fire twice in the Dover Strait on 18 February this year resulting in the safe evacuation of 28 crew members, has been sold for demolition in Turkiye.
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