Cabin fire with a trapped passenger and a team at the door
On a ro-ro passenger ferry, cabin 3211 is alight; the mattress and bedding are burning. The cabin door is closed, the top of the door is too hot to hold a hand against, and grey smoke is coming from the gap at the bottom. A passenger is believed to still be inside. The alleyway is smoke-logged to about one metre below the deckhead and visibility is around three metres. Two firefighters in BA are at the door. The team leader has eight minutes elapsed on a 30-minute cylinder. The entry control officer has him recorded at the door and holds the board at the fire station one deck below. The team leader wants to go straight in because it is only a mattress, and says he will pull his mask off if the casualty is unconscious so he can shout for help. The team's spare cylinder is in the fire locker one deck down, and the thermal imaging camera is with the other team. Emergency lighting in the alleyway has failed; the corridor is lit by hand torches only.
1. Describe the door-entry procedure the team must follow before and during entry, and explain why each step matters in this specific cabin.
Read the worked answer
- Stop and assess. Door closed, top hot, smoke at the base: the fire is inside and the upper layer is hot and fuel-rich. A door opened carelessly admits air and the fire can flash out over the firefighters' heads.
- Charge the hose and set a spray pattern, not a jet. A jet pushes air and fire and can injure anyone in the cabin.
- Position on the hinged side, low, with the door between you and the fire; crack the door with the back of the hand or the foot, keeping behind it as a shield.
- Cool the door, then the gas layer just inside, with short pulses from the doorway. Do not sweep the branch into the room; that stirs the smoke and destroys visibility.
- Look with the thermal imager before entering. Here the camera is with the other team, so either get it to the door first or accept that the search will be slow and by touch.
- Brief the team: who takes the branch, who searches, who handles the casualty, the exit route, the turn-around time and the low-air signal. This is the step the leader wanted to skip, and it is the one that keeps people alive. Speed comes from a rehearsed drill, not from abandoning procedure.
2. Assess the entry-control situation. What must the officer record and control, and why is the low-air whistle a withdrawal order rather than a warning?
Read the worked answer
The records: names of both wearers, cylinder pressures and time in, air used, route and task, the time of the low-air whistle, and time out. He keeps the board, permits no one to enter alone, logs every team in the space, and controls the standby and rescue teams.
Why the whistle ends the job: a 30-minute cylinder is rated at a consumption of 40 litres per minute. Working in smoke, dragging a casualty or climbing stairs can double that. At eight minutes elapsed this team may already have used a third of its air. The whistle sounds at roughly a third remaining, about 50-55 bar on a 200 bar set - just enough to reach fresh air while breathing hard. Treating it as a suggestion is how BA fatalities happen.
The plan is unsafe on three counts: entering without a briefing, intending to remove his own mask, and with the spare cylinder a deck below and the thermal imager with another team.
Correct action: bring the spare set and the thermal imager to the entry point before entry, or delay entry and cool the door; set and record a turn-around time now; keep a rescue team standing by at the door. If the team enters, the entry control officer withdraws them on the whistle, not on the leader's judgement.
3. The team finds the passenger unconscious on the cabin floor. Describe the rescue, and identify the specific errors in the leader's stated plan.
Read the worked answer
The errors in the plan:
- Removing his own mask in a smoke-filled space would incapacitate the rescuer within a few breaths and turn one casualty into two. The mask stays on. The casualty's face is dealt with in clean air, not in the corridor.
- Entering with the intention of shouting for help is not a plan; the radio and the entry control board are the means of communicating.
The rescue:
- Keep low, below the hot layer; the safest air is near the deck.
- Grasp the casualty under the shoulders or by the collar and drag, or use a fireman's lift only if the route allows. For a stairwell use two rescuers, one at the head and one at the feet, or a rescue harness and blanket.
- Close the cabin door behind you to limit the fire's spread into the alleyway while you move the casualty.
- Do not stop inside the smoke to assess the casualty. Report by radio what has been found so a second team can continue the search of the adjacent cabins and a medical party can be routed to meet you.
- In fresh air, hand over, give oxygen if trained, and record where the casualty was found, in what position and at what time. That record is also evidence for the fire investigation.