Container hold fire at night: alarm timing, headcount and CO2 authority
At 02:40, your 1,200 TEU container ship is on passage in the Gulf of Guinea with 21 crew. A fire alarm activates from cargo hold 3. The bridge sends a runner who reports thick black smoke and visible flame from a container, but the CO2 system has not been released and the boundary bulkheads are still cool. Wind is force 5, the ship is making 14 knots, and the nearest vessel is 40 nm away. The muster list assigns 6 crew to the fire team, 4 to boundary cooling, and 2 to the emergency squad; 3 of the fire team have never practised in BA. The general emergency alarm has not been sounded. The chief officer is urging immediate fixed CO2 release, while the master wants to continue to the rendezvous with a tug. One deckhand reports to the wrong muster station and refuses to move.
1. What alarm, speed and muster actions do you press for in the first five minutes, and why in that order?
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Sound the general emergency alarm now - seven or more short blasts plus one long blast on the whistle and the internal alarm - followed by a PA naming hold 3. The alarm is not a decision to fight the fire; it is what gets 21 people to stations and produces a headcount, which is the one thing the master cannot reconstruct later.
Sequence I would push for:
- Reduce speed and alter course to bring smoke and wind clear of the accommodation. At 14 knots the hold is being fed air and boundary cooling is largely wasted.
- Muster by name at stations and report missing persons to the bridge. The deckhand must be physically seen by a named person, not assumed present.
- Close down: ventilators, fire dampers and boundaries to hold 3, then start boundary cooling.
- Bridge: radio watch on Ch 16, inform the coast station/MRCC, and warn the engine room to standby.
CO2 is not released at this stage. It is a last resort that only works with the space sealed and everyone accounted for. The tug rendezvous is not a reason to delay firefighting; a rendezvous is useful only after the fire is contained.
2. How do you handle the deckhand refusing to move, and the three fire-team members with no BA experience?
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The deckhand is a headcount problem before he is a discipline problem. Send two people he knows, one talking calmly, and have him escorted to his station or to a safe position in sight of an officer. Report him as 'location known, being escorted', not as 'missing'. Never let the bridge record him as mustered until someone has eyes on him, because the CO2 decision and any search depend on that count being true. Arguing with him over the PA makes it worse.
The three untrained members must not enter the hold in BA. Put them on boundary cooling, hose handling, ladder/guide duties or as runners, and keep BA entry with trained wearers. This is a judgement under pressure: a fire team short of three bodies is a problem, but an untrained wearer inside a smoke-filled hold is a fatality waiting to happen, and it also compromises the rescue of the entry team. Log the training gap for the post-incident report and the next drill; do not fix it in the middle of a fire.
3. State the conditions you would require before fixed CO2 is released, and how you weigh that against continuing at speed to the tug.
Read the worked answer
Release only when all of these are true:
- A named headcount shows no one in hold 3 or adjacent spaces, and no one unaccounted for anywhere.
- The hold is sealed - hatches, dampers and ventilators closed, boundaries checked.
- Boundary cooling is running to protect structure and adjacent spaces.
- The master accepts the fire cannot be controlled by other means.
If anyone is unaccounted for, no release: CO2 into an occupied space kills, and CO2 into an unsealed hold simply vents and wastes the system.
On the tug: continuing at 14 knots undermines both the sealing and the cooling and keeps feeding oxygen to the fire. Slowing and steering to keep smoke clear costs little; pressing on to a rendezvous costs containment. The chief officer's urgency is understandable but urgency is not one of the release conditions.