ABSTRACT
Ship fires are a rare occurrence, or at least they are supposed to be! In the Houston area, there were five significant ship fires from April 1997 to March of 1998—the most anyone can remember. Three of these occurred since November, and two of these are worth reviewing to look at the organization and strategies developed to mitigate the events. Also of interest is how the event transitioned from the emergency response phase of fire suppression operations to the ongoing mitigation phase of pollution response operations. The M/V Stolt Spirit fire occurred on 11 November 1997, when afire started in the engine room during bunkering operations. Response resources battled the conflagration for over 54 hours before finally bringing the stubborn fire under control. The M/V Katania fire occurred on 9 March 1998, when a Class-? cargo fire was discovered during loading operations. Response forces battled this fire for over 14 hours before bringing it under control. Both of these fires had many similarities, including many of the same response personnel. Due to legal constraints, there were no comprehensive lessons learned from the Stolt Spirit fire, but many responders who worked both fires ensured that some of the problems noted on the first incident were not repeated. Success can be measured in various ways, but one key to that success is the implementation of a Unified Command to develop response objectives, mitigate the incident, and meet their various jurisdictional requirements.
Application of a CREAM based framework to assess human reliability in emergency response to engine room fires on ships
