Engine room fire with a missing crew member

1. Muster, headcount and information - before anything else. The headcount (21 of 22) is the single most important piece of information on the bridge: it determines whether the space can be sealed and flooded with CO2. Get a name, last known position and time from the duty engineer's log and the watchkeeper.

2. Bridge control of the ship. She is drifting in a shipping lane. Inform the VTS/coast radio station, hoist the lights/shapes for a vessel not under command, make a PAN PAN broadcast if there is a risk to navigation, and prepare the anchor. Steering and propulsion may be lost, so the ship's safety and the firefighting are managed in parallel, not one after the other.

3. Isolate the fire's fuel and air. Close the quick-closing valves on the fuel tanks serving the affected machinery, stop the fuel transfer and booster pumps, stop the forced draught and exhaust ventilation fans, and close the engine room ventilators, skylights and dampers. Every minute the fire has a clean air supply is a minute it grows.

4. Rescue. A person is unaccounted for. Two BA teams with charged hoses, thermal imaging and a lifeline enter by the lower access if it is tenable, working in pairs with a designated outside attendant and a fixed entry time. If the smoke conditions prevent entry, this becomes a decision to accept the loss of the third engineer in order to save the ship - record the time and the reasons.

5. Boundary cooling on all four sides of the engine room, and start the emergency fire pump; check that the fire main is pressurised and that the international shore connection is ready.

6. Prepare the CO2 system - read the fire plan, count the bottles, confirm the space can be completely sealed, and brief the chief engineer and master. Do not release until step 1 is finally resolved.

Pre-release checklist

• All persons out and accounted for. Every name on the muster list ticked, and the engine room confirmed empty by a physical search or by a reliable report. This is non-negotiable: CO2 at 40% of the gross volume of the largest space is designed to extinguish a fire, not to support life.
• The space is sealed. All doors, stairway hatches, ventilator flaps, funnel dampers, skylights, cable penetrations and the casing access closed. Every opening left open lets the gas out and air in - the release will fail and the gas will be wasted.
• Machinery stopped and fuel isolated, so no hot surface or fuel source is left to re-ignite the fire.
• The firefighting teams withdrawn from the space and a fresh headcount taken at the muster station, with a time check.
• The release procedure per the fire plan: normally both the pilot and the main valves, releasing the required number of bottles at once, not in stages.

Consequences

• Too early: the death of anyone still inside, and the probability of a failed extinction because the space is not sealed.
• Too late: the fire has time to burn through the engine room boundaries to the accommodation or a cargo hold, to distort the casing, or to reach the fuel tanks; an engine room fire that is not fought within the first 20–30 minutes often becomes a total loss.

After the release: keep the space closed, monitor boundary temperatures with a thermal imager, continue boundary cooling, and do not open up for at least the period set in the fire plan. Re-entry is a BA operation with a charged hose, after ventilating and testing the atmosphere for oxygen, CO and CO2 - never on the assumption that 'the fire is out'.

Securing the ship

• Keep the space closed while monitoring boundary and casing temperatures; a re-flash is common, and the space will be hot enough to re-ignite fuel residues.
• Ventilate under control and only with a BA team and charged hoses standing by; test the atmosphere (O2, CO, CO2, combustible gas) before anyone enters without BA.
• Restore essential power, steering and, if possible, propulsion; re-assess the ship's stability with any firefighting water accumulated in the engine room, and check for free surface and flooding through the boundaries.
• Assess the damage: cabling, switchboard, machinery foundations, structural distortion, and whether the ship can proceed or must be towed.

Reporting

• Full report to the company DPA and the master's designated contacts; the flag state administration; the classification society and, where required, the port state at the next port; P&I and hull insurers; and the coastal state if there is any pollution risk or a casualty.
• File the statutory reports in the time required (casualty report, and a marine casualty investigation report to the flag state if the fire was serious or there was a fatality).

Records

• Bridge and official log entries: alarm time, muster times and headcounts, orders given, time of the CO2 release and the number of bottles, boundary cooling times, the search for the third engineer and the decision points.
• Statements from the duty engineer, watchkeeper and fire teams, taken early while memory is fresh, plus photographs and a sketch of the seat of the fire.
• The ship's SMS non-conformity and risk-assessment review: UMS rounds, fire detection coverage, crew training, drill records and the muster list.
• A formal internal investigation, preserved evidence, and a review of whether the fire patrol and fire drills reflected a realistic engine room scenario.