Accommodation Fire at Berth: Cabin B-14
At 22:40, on a 1,800 TEU container ship berthed at Chennai, you are walking along the B-deck accommodation alleyway when you smell hot plastic and see light grey smoke seeping from under the door of cabin B-14, a two-berth cabin. The door handle is warm. The alleyway is still clear but smoke is beginning to layer at the ceiling. The cabin's two occupants are at dinner in the mess room, and a headcount at muster would take several minutes. The ship has a fixed CO2 system for the engine room but not for the accommodation; there are water fire mains with hoses and 9 kg DCP extinguishers at the alleyway station. The port fire brigade is 25 minutes away and the gangway is rigged.
1. State your actions in the first 60 seconds and justify the order.
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First 60 seconds, in this order:
- Raise the alarm before anything else - break the nearest call point, shout 'Fire, fire, fire, accommodation B deck, cabin B-14', and tell the bridge by the nearest telephone or radio. An unreported fire is the one that kills.
- Do not open the door. Feel it with the back of the hand; a warm handle with smoke at the top of the door means fire inside with unburnt gases waiting for air.
- Get the extinguisher and a charged hose to the door, close every fire door and cabin door between you and the fire, stop ventilation and air-conditioning for that zone, and switch off the cabin's electrical supply if the breaker is reachable safely.
- Muster and account for the two occupants - if someone is inside, that changes everything and the master must know immediately.
Order matters because the alarm brings trained people with breathing apparatus while the fire is still one cabin; opening the door first converts a cabin fire into an alleyway fire.
2. Should you open the cabin door? What would you do if you had to?
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Only if there is a confirmed person inside, or as part of an organised attack by the fire team with a charged hose, breathing apparatus and a back-up. A compartment fire starves itself of oxygen; opening the door feeds it, and a smoke-gas explosion or flashover can come out at you.
If entry is unavoidable: two people minimum, one on the hose and one as back-up, BA sets on, hose charged and shut at the branch, stand to the side of the door, open it slowly and stay behind it as a shield, keep low, use short pulses of water fog aimed at the seat of the fire, and never let the door close behind you in a way that traps you. If the fire is past a bin or a mattress, back out and let the team use the hose from the doorway.
The judgement point is that a quick rescue attempt without BA in a smoke-filled cabin usually produces a second casualty, and the person you were trying to save then has no rescuer left.
3. What extinguishing medium is correct here, and what must be done at the same time?
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Water is the medium for an accommodation fire. It is the only agent with enough heat capacity to cool the burning material, and it is available at the fire main. Use a fog pattern to cool the hot gases on the way in; a straight jet on a cabin fire just makes steam and scatters burning material.
DCP is for electrical gear and for a quick knockdown at the seat of a small fire, but it does not cool, so the fire can reignite. CO2 must not be used where people may be - the fixed CO2 system on this ship is for the engine room only; discharging it into accommodation would not work and would endanger anyone inside. Switch off the cabin's electrical supply before committing water.
At the same time: boundary cooling on the deck above and on the bulkheads either side, fire doors shut, muster and headcount, and a responsible person at the gangway to meet the port fire brigade with a plan of the accommodation and the exact location of the fire. The master takes over as on-scene commander; your job is to give him accurate information.