OT: Container ship fire and the butterfly effect.

[T i m]

I caught the back half of a thing on TV (Quest I think) last night where they were covering a container ship that suffered a fire then explosion in one of it's container holds that burnt for a month.

They got the scientists in and (all from memory), they examined the fire detection 'sniffer' pipes and found a residue of PVC. They had (from the manifest) containers in that hold that contained PVC and apparently it can give off hydrogen (that probably caused the explosion(s)) but only if it gets very hot.

Then they noticed that the PVC containers had been stored close to some containers of some unstable adhesive that was made stable (for 60 days at 18 DegC) by mixing it with a stabiliser. Even though the containers had been stored onshore somewhere hot (27 DegC) en route and that reduced the effect of the stabiliser to 30 days, they were still inside that timeframe, so something else must have shortened that time ...

Then they noticed those containers were stored close to some others that had to be kept hot to keep the content molten and this had heated the other containers, causing them to overheat and to heat the PVC ...

The CO2 fire extinguisher system had failed [1] and whilst it did flood that particular hold with CO2, it also leaked into the engine room, tripping an alarm and killing the engine (adding to the issues at the time).

They also tried to apply water to cool it all down but the fire was too deep in the hold and in mostly sealed containers (pre explosions anyway). ;-(

The containers containing the volatile adhesive were put down deep rather than stacked on the upper / outer levels because there were designated under two 'hazards', one being the fire / explosive / unstable nature and the other 'Risk to marine environments' and the latter took precedence so they were positioned where they were unlikely to go overboard (in a storm etc).

Whilst the hazard of the adhesive had been declared by the manufacturers / shippers, no one involved in the loading of the ship had taken note of enough of it to not put such a mix together (had they been party to it in the first place etc).

I think three crew died trying to deal with it all. ;-(

I think the adhesive has had it's hazard classification modified so that it can't be placed were it was again.

Apparently fires on container ships aren't that uncommon. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[1] Apparently most / all of the other similar ships of that design / era had the same fault in the fire suppression system.

[Spike]

One wonders whether they were following the letter of the regulations and the hazard warnings, or their spirit.

The loss of the crew members is very sad.

[Caecilius]

I would have expected there to be rules in place for the placement of heated containers. There must be many products that will react badly to elevated temperature, and lots more that may be degraded in some way.

That's awful, and puts in perspective just how bad the fire must have been if people had to risk their lives trying to extinguish it.

[T i m]

There must be, just that I don't believe anyone considered them (much) in this instance.

Apparently, most such fires are caused by people not shipping things properly and not declaring them accurately.

I would imagine so.

It was pretty bad ...

Cheers, T i m

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes certainly container ships do have fires but most are extinguished by the on board systems pretty fas. I can only assume that in this case it was one of those perfect storm occasions where everything was stacked in favour of mayhem.

Unfortunately in the world as it is with complex needs of cargo, eventually mistakes will occur, but really in this case surely the containment system should not have been allowed to flood a sealed area with flammable gas, it should have been vented overboard.

Brian

[Max Demian]

It was CO2 in this case, not a flammable gas. Too bad that made the engines stop.

[T i m]

I believe it was.

The suggestion is most of these 'mistakes' are actually people trying to get away with shipping stuff cheaply that would cost more because it requires 'special attention' and not declaring it accurately.

They suggested it's often not possible to extinguish a fire within a container that is producing it's own oxygen because it remains sealed and so no access by water or a oxygen excluding gas.

I believe the hydrogen that was produced by the overheated PVC was vented into the other flames and the exploding container blew others apart and into the sea.

Cheers, T i m