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A New View of Marine Firefighting

By George Collazo

2003 George Collazo

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface: About the Galaxy Fire

A Word of Explanation

1. Fire on a Frigid Sea2. The Reality of Shipboard Firefighting3. How We Attack Fires

4. Your Opponent5. What is a Major Fire?6. The Present System is Inadequate7. Fundamentals of Tactical Training8. Fundamental #1: Priority-Setting9. Fundamental #2: Monitoring of Personnel10. Fundamental #3: Command and Control11. Fundamental #4: The Support Team12. The Captain and Chief Engineer: The Person in the Wheelhouse13. The Captain and Chief Engineer: The Role of the Chief Engineer14. Organizing the Crew for Fire-Fighting

15. Training on Tactics vs. Contingencies16. Tactics: Two-Team Rotation17. When Things Go Wrong: Retreat Mode18. Real Preparation for a Major Fire19. Training: It Begins and Continues Aboard Ship20. Training Aids21. The Fallacy of Expensive Training22. SCBAs and Air23.A Primer on SCBA Bottles24.Air Compressors25. The Role of Marine Firefighting Training Facilities

26. "Practice Fields"27. Conclusion

Preface: About the GalaxyFire

This article makes mention of the fire on the fishing vessel Galaxy, whichoccurred on October 20, 2002. Three dedicated, hard-working individuals diedin the fire. Were it not for the Galaxy's captain and other brave individuals

aboard, the loss of life would have been much greater.

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It is not the intent of this article to criticize the actions of the Galaxy'sofficers and crew. Indeed, the author has nothing but admiration for thecaptain in particular, who acted selflessly in the best interests of thecrew.

I do not fault in any way the deceased. The chief mate and cook, inparticular, responded to the emergency in the best traditions of the sea,with the welfare of the crew in mind, and paid for their dedication bymaking the ultimate sacrifice.

I do not in any way impugn the reputation of the company which ownedthe Galaxy, which I personally know to be a business of the highestintegrity; one that goes far beyond what is required in the interests offishing vessel safety; and which takes a paternal interest in the welfareof its employees.

I have no bones to pick with any safety agency or arm of thegovernment. My sole purpose with this article is to advance theknowledge of marine firefighting, so that such tragedies are less likelyto occur in the future.

George Collazo, Seattle, 2003

A Word of Explanation

This article concerns firefighting on uninspected vessels in the Alaskan Trade,

though the conclusions drawn may apply equally well to any ship. In regardsto firefighting equipment found aboard Alaskan fishing and freight vessels; theaverage boat might be said to carry 2 sets of firemen's turnouts (coat, pants,hood, boots, helmet, gloves), 2 SCBAs (self-contained breathing apparatus)units and 4 SCBA air bottles. Many vessels in the trade carry no firefightinggear whatsoever. Others carry much more than what is listed here.

F/V Galaxyon Fire, Bering Sea, 2002. (Photo: U.S. Coast Guard)

Fire on a Frigid Sea

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The history of fire fighting in the Alaskan fishing trades is a fascinating mixtureof heroism and unpreparedness, courage and incompetence. Which is odd,because the dangerous waters of the North Pacific and Bering Sea fosterstough, capable seamen. The nature of the Alaskan fishing industry, driven bytechnology and linked to worldwide markets, tends to place intelligent persons

in the wheelhouse and engineroom. When the subject of fires on Alaskanships is studied, one is struck not by the inexperience or foolishness of theofficers involved but rather their experience and resilience under stress.

None of that means anything to a fire, of course. Fire is the ultimate man-eater. Once released it consumes food and oxygen like any other living thing,albeit at a hyperkinetic rate at odds with the organic world. We look at a forestfire on TV and marvel how even a thousand firefighters could hope to containit, never stopping to consider that a shipboard fire will spread just as quickly;is, in fact, the same animal bottled up in the metal oven that is your ship.

The purpose of this series of articles is not to preach again the need forfire safety and firefighting training. The entire maritime industry is wellbeyond that. What I hope to alert readers to is just how inadequate theirlevel of preparation likely is. To alert them to the fact that there are no halfmeasures in firefighting--either your crew is truly prepared or you might aswell as abandon ship before someone gets hurt. This article will also detaillow-cost ways of training your crewmembers aboard ship to prepare forfirefighting. Real preparation for firefighting does not take tens of thousands ofdollars worth of annual training budget. What it takes is something harder tocome by: a mindset and willingness on the part of management and crews toactually face reality when it comes to themselves and their shortcomings.

The Reality of Shipboard Firefighting

This article concerns itself with vessels in the Alaskan trade--fishing boats(from the 90' crabber to the 270' factory trawler), fish processors, tenders,coastal freighters and tugs. Hold and superstructure fires are more of adanger to uninspected vessels such as these, than to inspected vessels. Mostof these vessels have sizeable amounts of plywood and foam insulation in

their construction; an excellent fuel source. Processing vessels, especially,are subdivided into a warren of factory and living spaces on separate decks,joined by vertical shafts such as fidleys and elevator shafts. As is the case onmost merchant vessels, firefighters on uninspected vessels are short-handed.In addition to this, those on uninspected vessels must also fight fires in a fuel-rich environment, one in which a raging fire can break out on different decksat once, spreading through vertical shafts.

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Crews contemplating a direct attack on a fire must be trained

in excess of the present norm in the Alaskan fishing industry.

How We Attack Fires

There are two options for fighting a fire on a ship: indirect and direct attack.Indirect attack (in part) is the stratagem ofdelayingthe fire's spread byclosing off ventilation, followed by the application of a fire extinguishing agentnot on the seat of the fire itself but in the general area.

Note the modifier "delay". While some fires can be put out by indirect attack itis an uncertain process. Essentially you are trying to choke a powerful beastor asphyxiate it with its own waste products. To not expect the animal to fight

back would be foolish. An indirect attack buys you time, if nothing else, toabandon ship or make a direct attack. Keep in mind I am talking about thecase of uninspected fishing vessels, not, for example, an "inspected"container ship, in which combustible materials are not allowed in ship'sconstruction.

A direct attack is just that. You are sending your crew in to find the lair of thebeast and kill it. Hoses, extinguishers, SCBAs, turnouts--all the paraphernaliaof firefighting--are called into play. Your crewmembers will enter asuperheated atmosphere hot enough to melt the helmets on their heads, a firecreating its own ventilation system to expand itself exponentially.

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The two methods of attack are wholly exclusive of each other. With a directattack you want to vent off the heat and smoke which otherwise hampers yourfire teams' effectiveness, knowing full well that increased ventilation allows thefire to spread. An indirect attack usually requires shutting off ventilation. Adirect attack is the most dangerous option, of course. Unless your crew is

equipped and truly prepared to deal with the beast--and I contend mostcrews are not--it is better to prosecute an indirect attack, or you arebegging for an injury.

In an indirect attack SCBAs and turnouts still have a vital role, if only inrescuing trapped personnel and setting off fixed firefighting systems. In 1996the tug Scandia caught fire off the coast of Rhode Island. The fire might havebeen quickly extinguished by the fixed CO2 system. However, the dischargecontrols, located in the fidley above the engineroom, could not be reachedbecause of the lack of SCBAs and turnout gear aboard. The fidley hadbecome so hot no one could enter. The end result was the grounding of the

barge North Cape and the spill of 828,000 gallons of fuel oil on pristinebeaches.

I argue that nearly all vessels, in any trade, are ill-prepared for a directattack on a major fire. Unless training of the sort specified elsewhere inthis series of articles is performed, crews should limit themselves toindirect attacks. SCBAs and turnouts should only be used to rescuetrapped personnel, or similar limited tasks.

Your Opponent

I prefer to think of fire a living entity. I do this not to play cute with the subject,to anthropomorphize fire as would be done in a Disney training film. By anyobjective set of standards, it is difficult not to class fire as a living thing. Itmetabolizes air in the precise proportions you and I do. It requires food. Itgenerates waste products. It will die from hypothermia. It can be poisoned. Itbreeds at an incredible rate if unchecked.

And just as any brute animal will fight back if attacked, fire is prepared todefend itself. This is rarely spoken of in marine firefighting schools--theviciousness with which fire lashes back, seemingly with a mind of its own,

when attacked.

-You make plans to fight a fire with hoses. The fire takes out your generators.You lose the fire pumps. The fire has disarmed you.

-A fire team opens the door to a blazing compartment. The inrush of oxygencauses an explosion. The chief mate is gravely injured. The fire hasdecapitated your leadership.

-Your fire team, breathing from air bottles which will last only ten minutes,manages to find its way down to the factory floor afterseven minutes of

stumbling around smoke-filled spaces. They can see the seat of the fire. Their

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SCBA alarms go off, warning ofonly two or three minutes of air left. The firewas clever, hid itself from view, drew your people in and asphyxiated them.

A trainee extinguishes a Class B fire with a portable CO2 extinguisher. The authordefines a major fire

as one that cannot be extinguished with portable extinguisher.

What is a Major Fire?

In this series of articles I will constantly refer to a 'major fire'. I define a majorfire as one that cannot be put out with portable extinguishers alone. Ialso use the term 'Hot Zone', which I define as that area in which a personcannot safely operate unless wearing an SCBA, due to the presence ofsmoke.

The Present System is Inadequate

Put aside for a moment the fact that we treat fire as a sort of venereal diseasein our contingency plans, ready to crop up any moment but easily put downwith the right medicine. Consider our preparations for fires aboard ship, asthey exist now. We are well past the Dark Ages of emergency preparedness.After all, we have the Station Bill, do we not? We have the ShipboardFirefighting Plan, covering contingencies from hold fire to engineroom fire. Wehave the lovely Safety Equipment Plan, drawn up by the marine architect,showing in three colors where all the firefighting equipment can be found.What is more, we have drills and we have equipment.

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Why is it then three persons died on the fishing vessel Galaxyin the BeringSea, October 2002? Plans and equipment were in place. The officers hadattended firefighting school, were experienced, brave and extremelycompetent at what they did.

Yet the three members of the investigating fire team were blown overboardbefore they even saw the actual fire. Station bills, plans, equipment--all meantnothing. The fire, finding itself under attack, waved what amounts to anexceedingly large paw and smacked three humans over the side in an instant.One drowned. Two others were pulled aboard, one of whom subsequentlydrowned in the chaotic bid to abandon ship, as fire consumed the vessel withincredible speed.

The fire advanced. It did not play to the rules of the script as laid down in allthe plans and bills. If seamanship and courage were enough to deal with afire, fires would be put out in short order. The trouble lies in the fact that fire--a

primitive lifeform existing on an accelerated scale of existence--can easilychange its behavior to outwit any poorly thought-out plan you may havedevised. Fire's stock-in-trade is killing the brave and reckless. The only hopeof extinguishing a major fire lies in tactical training carried on aboard ship on aregular basis. Without this tactical training mariners should not even attempt adirect attack on a fire--a classic charge-up-the-hoses and let's-go-get-it attack.Containment and evacuation should be the only options.

Fighting a major fire is like playing in the Super Bowl--and the fact is yourteam's experience consists of five days or less of training taken years ago,piecemeal, nobody in the team having played together as a group (i.e. trainedin a simulator as a crew). Who would honestly expect to go into a Super Bowlgame with such an inexperienced team, fight the best team there is--no holdsbarred-- and not come out with someone injured or dead? What's more, youactually thinkyou have a chance--it was built into poor-sucker-you infirefighting school, surreptitiously and by osmosis. You would attack the fireand it would die; unless of course you were slovenly in responding to it, inwhich case you deserved what you got. The fact that the opposing team wasactually betterthan you, could kick your ass in short order on its worst daywith one blaze tied behind its back, was not discussed.

Or let's use another analogy, perhaps more to the point. Marine firefighting isakin to hunting lions in tall grass. The lions will fight back. You had better beprepared for those attacks. Somebody will get hurt--depend on it. Your peoplewill get lost and separated in the grass. Forget about command-and-controlfrom somebody back in camp. Your hunters have to be able to operateindependently; be savvy enough not to inadvertently shoot each other; steadyenough to hunt on even with a hunter down. And they need support: moreammo, more water under that hot savanna sun.

What I propose is a radical new way of approaching firefightingorganization and training aboard uninspected vessels in the Alaskan

trade. Radical for the maritime world, not for professional land-boundfirefighters. For them it has been standard procedure for many years.

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Most firefighting schools have time to only teach the rudiments of extinguishing fires at sea.

Tactical training is needed for true proficiency.

Fundamentals of Tactical Training

Some of the fundamental differences in tactical training I see between

professional firefighters and ship's crews acting as firefighters are:

1. Priority-setting.2. Monitoring of personnel.3. Command and control.4. The existence of an efficient Support Team.

Most station bills will address one or more of these fundamentals in a cursorymanner, but seldom with the depth they demand. These fundamentals are thecornerstone of the rigorous shipboard training which must occur if a crewexpects to mount a successful direct attack on a major fire. Without them

success is an unconscionable dice-roll.

Fundamental #1: Priority-Setting

A city fire department is under no illusion that it can put out any fire thatcomes its way. Firemen set priorities accordingly. First comes saving publiclives. Next comes protecting firefighters. A sorry third is saving property. Awarehouse that is a raging inferno is often let burn. The firefighters contentthemselves with preventing the spread of fire to other structures. Everyonegoes home alive.

With marine firefighting the first priority should be the preservation oflife. If poorly trained crewmembers are rushed into a direct attack on a major

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fire this priority will have been violated. Crewmembers will be taking a risk,which, unless it involves the rescue of trapped personnel, is unjustifiable.

Notconducting a direct attack on the fire, knowing full well the fire willeventually spread from any containment boundaries, is a real option. As I

have said, with uninspected fishing vessels, particularly the older ships, tryingan indirect attack by closing off all ventilation and doors seldom extinguishesa major fire, and usually serves only to delay its spread. Nevertheless, it is myopinion that an indirect attack is all most mariners are capable of if they wantto avoid loss of life. This does not impugn the caliber of the people or theirtraining. Mariners are not professional firefighters and will never approach thatskill-level, unless they choose to invest far more time than is practical giventhe constraints of their jobs. Even then the physical demands on aprofessional firefighter are far in excess of what we can rationally expect fromthe average mariner.

If the Galaxycrew had devoted their time to slowing the advance of the fire byclosing doors and securing ventilation, towards the end of swiftly abandoningship in an organized manner, three men would be alive today. To a certaindegree basic firefighting training puts personnel in danger of injury ordeath because they are left with an illusion of capability they do not trulyhave. In the vernacular: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

The logic is irrefutable: lives on the Galaxywere lost when they needn't havebeen. This is not the fault of the officers or company but rather thepresent mindset in the entire maritime world. The Galaxy's officers weredoing what they were trained to do, in conformance with the practice of mostmerchant marine vessels.

In part, the danger lies in relying on contingency plans and "paper planning" ofall kinds. Contingency plans read like cake recipes. The cook alwaysassumes the ingredients will behave the same way, every time, when in factnothing can be more unpredictable than the makeup of a ship's crew or theinteraction of that crew with a raging fire.

For example: Central to firefighting contingency plans should be the questionof when to abandon ship. An average contingency plan addresses this with

directives such as "Only when all means available to extinguish the fire havebeen exhausted will the crew abandon ship".

Better we supplant that way of thinking with a decision-tree:

CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR FIRE-FIGHTING

Are there any trapped crew members that need to be rescued? Yes?Make a direct attack on the fire. No? Then

Is the crew highly trained and physically fit to face a major fire? Yes.Fight the fire. No? Then

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Use an indirect attack. Close off all ventilation sources and all doors.Actuate fixed fire suppression systems. Is the weather good and helpat hand? Yes? Abandon ship. No? Then

Deploy carefully monitored crews topside ONLY, to cool the weatherdeck and slow the spread of fire. Prepare to abandon ship. Is the fire

advancing on the survival craft / embarkation deck? Yes. Abandonship. No? Then...

To most mariners this is a strange way of thinking of emergency plans, alwaysso black-and-white between the covers of their vinyl binders. In the actualevent decisions to questions never posed by the contingency plan must bemade quickly, under enormous pressure. Chief among these are always:What are your priorities? Saving lives or preventing pollution? Is your crewcompetent enough to fight a fire? Do you have the equipment for a directattack?

We assume that crews are competent enough to tackle a major fire becauseof STCW training: a ludicrous assumption. If you're a captain ask yourself thehard question: can your crew play the equivalent of the Super Bowl withoutgetting hurt? During your fire drills do crewmembers actually breathe the airfrom the SCBA tanks? No? Forget about direct attacks, unless you're trying tosave trapped personnel. Use your gear to cool down boundaries and delaythe spread of the fire, and prepare to evacuate. You are out-classed.

In training at Coastal Transportation's own fire-fighting simulator I findthat mariners who do not practice with live-air on a regular basis makeserious errors that would, at least, cause a direct attack on a fire to leadto a fiasco. The resulting rout and wasted time would result in fire spreadingfaster than it would have, had it been left alone behind closed doors. At worstthese errors would have led to the death of a "green" crewmember in the HotZone.

With the Galaxyfire three of the most experienced people in the crew werejust investigating the fire--hadn't even got near the seat of it --when they wereblown overboard. Think of this when you ask yourself if you're ready to playthe game. The average mariner reading this article is no better prepared thanthose individuals.

To extinguish a fire at the cost of one life, when the option was abandoningship on a calm sea with the Coast Guard at hand, is a cold victory.

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A key factor in a safe firefighting operation is keeping track of who goes in the Hot Zone and how long they havebeen in.

Fundamental #2: Monitoring of Personnel

In a major blaze ashore firefighters are rotated in-and-out of the fire-line. Aprofessional firefighter may only spend 10 minutes near or inside a structurecombating a blaze, before he or she is rotated out and another firefightertakes their place.

There are three good reasons for this. Heat and physical exertion soon drainsa firefighter's strength. Professional firemen are in extremely good physical

condition, better than most of the persons on your shipboard fire team. If aprofessional gets tired in 10 minutes of firefighting, imagine what wouldhappen to one of your crewmembers.

Next is the all-important subject of SCBA-air; important enough to beaddressed in full elsewhere in this article. Fire-fighters should be withdrawnfrom the fire-line before their low-air alarms go off. An SCBA air alarmgoes off to indicate 20% of the air supply is left. This typically means two tothree minutes of air, with older style SCBAs. That's not enough of a safetymargin to escape from a smoke-filled environment below decks. In 1993 thefish-processing vesselAll-Alaskan burned in the Bering Sea. The single

fatality was one of a pair of crewmembers who, acting without orders, donnedSCBAs to investigate the fire in the ship's hold. Both men turned back onhearing their alarms go off. They did not allow for a safety margin for escape.The victim became separated from his crewmate and died of asphyxiation.

Most importantly, rotation gives the fire-commander, the person in charge ofthe operation, a measure of control over the firefighters--one of the fewcontrols the commander has. The commander knows the fire will fight back inunexpected ways; that it might advance at any minute; that radios will breakdown and escape routes can be cut off. The fire commander has limitedcontrol over the fire's behavior. By rotating fire-fighters in-and-out on a set

schedule the commander can monitor and exert control over people, not

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the fire. Remember, the priority should be preserving lives, not extinguishingthe fire.

"Rotate who?" is the question that comes to some mariners' minds. A city firedepartment has a wealth of persons to draw from to combat a fire. A vessel in

the Alaskan trade might have a crew of well over a hundred persons, buttypically less than ten have any firefighting training, and usually far less thanthat. Rotation of personnel is still possible, however, with a crew of as little assix, as will be explained later on in this article.

Fundamental #3: Command and Control

The commander of a shoreside fire-fighting effort is on-scene, not in thefirehouse miles away. He or she sees what is going on and keeps positivetrack of personnel locations and fire-lines. Most importantly, the commandergives his or her undivided attention to the fire.

Consider the shipboard fire drills you have participated in over the years. It isa rare person who has not experienced a captain trying to run the firefightingoperation from the wheelhouse, with no real appreciation for what ishappening down below. This is a recipe for disaster. If the captain wants toleave the wheelhouse and lead the firefighting effort, putting the mate incharge of the wheelhouse and the Maydays, so be it. But the fire commandermust be on-scene and authorized to take whatever actions he or she deemsnecessary, with no other duties such as navigating the ship or talking to theCoast Guard.

This leads back to the Station Bill. The Station Bill lists who will do what job incase of an emergency, e.g. the captain in the wheelhouse and the matefighting the fire. What happens when reality intrudes? Departure from theStation Bill causes confusion. There will be times when a youngknowledgeable captain will be a better fire-commander than an older matejust brought in for a relief trip. If the Station Bill does not reflect this it will bean agent for chaos rather than organization.

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In a major fire injuries should be expected. Personnel must be trained to deal with them.

Fundamental #4: The Support Team

A major firefighting effort ashore requires a sizeable support team.

Specialized trucks containing SCBA bottles and hoses are dispatched. Amobile canteen to rehydrate firefighters sets up shop. A first-aid station isreadied to treat and evacuate injured citizens and firefighters. Without thesesupport services the fire-fighting effort grinds to a halt. Without breathing-airfirefighters cannot function. Without liquids they drop from dehydration.

Aboard ship there must be a team (or person) designated to perform all theseservices, if a direct attack on a fire is contemplated. While station bills andcontingency plans might touch on these matters, they seldom treat them in acoherent way, nor do captains allow for in-depth training of Support Teammembers.

The scene behind the wheelhouse of the Coastal Trader(I) after a fire in 1997. Notice the melted aluminum stack(background, right) and the holes in the aluminum skiff (foreground, right). Damage to the latter was caused solely

by radiant heat. The fire spread to the wheelhouse early on.

The Captain and Chief Engineer

The Person in the Wheelhouse

In the traditional plan for shipboard firefighting the captain stays in thewheelhouse. The captain makes maydays and directs rescue craft to the ship.The ship still has to be navigated, if possible, to prevent collisions andgrounding. Ultimately, the captain has to make the decision whether to stickwith the ship or evacuate.

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Manning the wheelhouse with the captain is perfectly sensible, unless thecaptain wants to run the firefighting effort from the wheelhouse. Somecaptains will be unable to resist the temptation of running the showthemselves. In such a case it is better that the captain assumes the fire-commander's role himself and leave the wheelhouse for the fire lines. A

trustworthy mate can easily handle the mayday-aspect of the operation. Butthe two jobs--fire commander and "wheelhouse person" communicating withthe outside world--should be completely separate. Both demand the fullattention of the responsible person.

In my job as port captain I have often paired young captains who have adetailed knowledge of their own ships and crew members with older matesnew to the vessel. In such a case the captain might very well be the bestchoice for fire-commander while the mate calls in help. This is perfectlyacceptable and, if contemplated, the Station Bill should reflect this, so there isno confusion when the event happens.

The Role of the Chief Engineer

Many fire contingency plans state that if the engineroom is on fire the chiefengineer will man the engine room. This is nonsense. To say that a chiefengineer will lead the attack on an engineroom fire is one thing. But there isno "manning" of a compartment on fire. There are no bystanders.

The question is, is your chief engineer competent to lead an attack on a fire?You are playing the Super Bowl, remember. Chief engineers, like captains,are often older individuals not in the best of physical shape. Why would youwant that sort of person on a fire team performing a direct attack on a ragingfire? The chief engineer on an uninspected vessel is often the only person inthe entire crew who possesses the knowledge to put the engineering plantback together again after a fire. You must assume your front-line leadershipwill be injured or killed in a major fire; welcome to reality. The loss of a captainmay or may not mean much, depending on the experience of the chief mate.Far worse for the ship would be the loss of the chief engineer. He is the kingon the chessboard. You don't want to sacrifice him or her at the start of thegame.

An excellent position for the Chief is as head of the Support Team. TheChief's leadership skills will be needed to direct these individuals while themates are busy with the fire teams. The Chief's mechanical skills will beneeded to troubleshoot, repair or jury rig the SCBAs, emergency pumps, andother gear needed for the firefighting effort.

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Fire team members practice organization at a simulator.

Organizing the Crew for Fire-Fighting

On uninspected vessels in the Alaskan Trade it is usual to organize crewmembers as "hose teams" or "fire teams" of two or more persons each. Thecaptain is in the wheelhouse making Maydays and leading rescue craft to theship. The other crewmembers are given ancillary roles: "assist as directed" isa frequent one, as is "close doors and ventilation", even though the latter goesagainst the basic tenets of waging a direct attack on fire.

Splitting the crew into hose teams makes sense. What is not appreciated isthat the ancillary personnel (the Support Team) are in fact vital to the effort.This Support Team must be trained long and hard in helping firefighters dontheir gear, change air bottles, facilitate rotation, perform the grunt work offeeding hoses around corners, rehydrate personnel, and--importantly--providefirst aid.

In testing at Coastal Transportation I have observed that a poorly trained

Support Team causes the entire firefighting effort to grind to a halt. And thetraining they receive mustbe done with live-air, i.e. SCBA air must actually beused.

A crew of seven can perform the jobs listed above, though with small crewsthe fire commander must take part in the actual firefighting. A fire-commanderashore directs the operation from outside the Hot Zone, letting others do thefighting. Most vessels in the Alaskan Trade do not have this luxury ofmanpower. Very often the mate (or captain) will have to don the gear and takethe nozzle.

Having the fire commander incommunicado in the Hot Zone for periods oftime may not be ideal, but it is dictated by reality. Which is why fire-team

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members must be trained to act independently and make good decisions forthemselves. After all, it is assumed that officers will be decimated in a directattack on a major fire. If the crew is incapable of fighting on with theirleader down a direct attack should not be contemplated.

With larger crews special problems present themselves. On processingvessels with crews of well over a hundred someone (or better yet severalpeople) must provide crowd-controlduties, to prevent a chaotic rush for theliferafts. Processing vessels have known this for years and, in general, havemade excellent plans for coping with this situation. The only problem withthese plans is the same as that for any written plan made in regards tofirefighting; provision must be made for the loss of leaders.

The Galaxyfire is a stark example. The captain, receiving a report of a littlesmoke below decks, delayed making an ETA. Quite prudently he sent aninvestigation team to the scene; it would be a rare captain to make a Mayday

based just on the initial report of a little smoke. When those crew memberswere blown over the side by an explosion the captain took over the man-overboard operation on deck. By the time he and the crew had rescued thetwo survivors in the water the wheelhouse was in flames, including the radios.At risk to his own life the captain searched the burning wheelhouse until hefound an operable handheld-VHF. His Mayday to the Coast Guard base onSt. Paul Island brought help to the survivors. The abandon ship operation didnot go well. Crowd control may have helped but of the two people ideal forthis task, the captain and mate, one was busy elsewhere with vital work andthe other, tragically, was dead.

The Station Bill and contingency plans, the cornerstones of maritime disasterplanning, went out the window in minutes. The fire decapitated the ship'sleadership as it spread to multiple decks simultaneously. Even a crew highlytrained in firefighting with unlimited SCBA air and portable fire pumps wouldhave been hard pressed to contain it.

Along with the proper gear a firefighter needs the proper tactics in his head to contend with a major fire.

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Training on Tactics vs. Contingencies

I hope I have stressed enough the unpredictable and relentless nature of fireaboard ship. To think in terms of specific plans for certain spaces is nothelpful. Rather than concentrate on "cookbook" contingency plans for

particular fires I believe ship's officers should concentrate on learning atoolbox of tactics that can be used for any fire, switching between themas needed. This means training and more training, most of it doneaboard ship. When conducting drills these tactics should be varied fordifferent scenarios of fire.

-A fuel-oil fire has broken out in the engineroom. The fire teams respondedquickly. At the start two hoses were deployed simultaneously, from oppositedirections, so that an attack from one direction would not simply push the fireelsewhere. Eventually the fire was extinguished in the engineroom but onlyafter it spread to the factory above it. It burns for hours. Firefighters rotate in-

and-out of the Hot Zone, while the Support Team tends the fire-fighters andequipment.

In the example above two separate attacks were used: a coordinated attackfrom two directions, to prevent the actions of one team from spreading the firein another direction; and two-team rotation to fight a stubborn fire. Learningtactics like these should form the backbone of fire drills.

Team members practicing proper entry procedures.

Tactics

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The length of these articles does not allow a comprehensive discussion ofshipboard firefighting tactics. Therefore I will touch only on the most difficult tolearn: two-team rotation.

Two-Team Rotation

For a major fire, especially one that is well established but confined to a singlespace, two-team rotation is a useful tactic. It seems very familiar to mostmariners. One fire team goes into the Hot Zone to deal with the fire. Theycome out eventually and rotate with another team.

This is good as far as it goes. What is missing is timing the duration of thepersonnel in the Hot Zone. What is the priority in fire-fighting? Preservinglives. Once a fire team goes below deck they are out of contact. Handheldradios, as everyone knows, are difficult to use with an SCBA mask on. Onceoverheated in the pocket of a fireman's turnouts they become inoperable

anyway. At what point does it become clear that the firefighters in the HotZone are trapped or lost? The firefighters waiting above can only wonder andworry--the kind of doubt that engenders panic. Panic is loss of control andcontrol is precisely what is needed, if not over the fire then over the personnel.

For that reason firefighters need to be recalled from the Hot Zone after aset duration of time. For the average SCBA found aboard uninspectedvessels ten minutes is a good duration, perhaps fifteen minutes for moremodern SCBA units which tend to last longer. At any rate, the firefightersshould begin their return to a safe atmosphere before their low-air alarms gooff, to provide a safe margin of time to effect an escape.

The firefighters in the Hot Zone cannot consult watches buried under theirgear. The standby team and Support Team need to time the firefightersin the Hot Zone and signal them a few minutes before their time is up.This can be done with the general alarm system if it functions. It can be donewith a hammer banging on a bulkhead or a small air horn stowed with theemergency equipment. But the firefighters outside the Hot Zone--standby fireteam and Support Team--must understand they are responsible for the livesof those within it. They are the actors in the only reliable contingency plan inthe firefighting operation: when the set duration of time is up and the fire-

team in the Hot Zone has not appeared, the standby fire team has but asingle purpose: to save their comrades. If the two teams should meet halfway in the Hot Zone so be it, but the standby team should enter withouthesitation for the sole purpose of rescue.

Let us suppose however the first team (led by the mate, who is the firecommander) comes up at the end of ten minutes. They pull off their SCBAmasks. As the Support Team swarms over them like a pit-crew in a stock carrace, changing bottles and offering water, the sweating, breathless firefighterstell the standby team where the fire is and what steps are needed to combatit. The standby team now enters the Hot Zone and combats the fire. The first

team, resting in a safe atmosphere, can take the time to radio up to thewheelhouse what they have seen and what steps have been taken to combat

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the fire. When the set duration of time has elapsed for the team in the HotZone the resting team goes in without hesitation, either to rescue their crewmates or combat the fire. No time is wasted in waiting and wondering.

Once the Support Team has changed out air bottles and offered water to the

resting team they take care of other duties: making sure hoses are freed up,fetching gear, tending emergency- or dewatering pumps. All important istiming and signaling the firefighters in the Hot Zone.

Keeping the firefighters hydrated is usually neglected in shipboard drills. Thefirefighters will sweat prodigiously underneath their turnouts and oncedehydrated quickly lose strength. If the fire continues on for hours they willbegin to suffer from heat exhaustion. All firefighting schools make a point ofkeeping their trainees hydrated. For some reason the lesson seems to beignored aboard ship. Hydration of course presupposes you have stockpiledwater for the purpose. A major fire will likely cause a loss of electrical power,

disabling the saltwater and freshwater systems. You may have a portablefirefighting pump to get water to the fire, but how do you get waterinto yourfirefighters?

A Dash for Timberby Frederic Remington.

Train for worst case scenarios, such as a hasty retreat in the face of an aggressivethreat.

When Things Go Wrong: Retreat Mode

You are hunting a pack of lions under a blazing African sun, in dense, eight-foot tall copses of grass, where you cannot see a foot in front of you. TheGreat White Hunter, your leader, is taken by surprise by a lion and mauled.You find what's left of him only by the screams. The lion responsible for thecarnage is killed but there are more out there, you can hear them roaring,smell them. Without a leader, arguing over what aid to render the injured,blind in the grass, your party begins to panic. Adrenaline flows. Reason isforgotten. Given a few moments to think in a new leader might be chosen andthe hunt renewed. Instead the lions seize the opportunity of confusion tospring and turn on their attackers. The hunters become the hunted. Your partybegins running

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It is the dark side of the fight-or-flight reflex. Panic. The replacement ofrational thought with fear. I call it Retreat Mode. Military commanders knowthat once soldiers panic in the face of the enemy and begin running it isextremely hard to get them to turn again. The same thing happens infirefighting.

The fire is reported. Everyone suits up. The chief mate and assistant engineergo down the smoke-filled ladderway to investigate the fire, navigating by feelin zero-visibility, punished by the intense heat whenever they are so foolish asto stand up. In a few minutes they come back up, the assistant all butdragging the mate behind him. The mate stumbled and his mask came off.His lungs are singed with smoke. What's more a door was left open during theretreat. The fire now spreads up the ladderway with a roar. The firefighters'staging position, where all the equipment was brought to, is being overrun bysmoke. Their leader is out of commission. The second mate is busy treatingthe chief mate, whose throat is swelling from the smoke, choking him. There

is no one for the fire team to turn to. Nothing has gone according to plan. Thecaptain in the wheelhouse comes down and shouts orders conflicting with thesituation at hand. Bedlam ensues. The crew runs for the liferafts

Reliance on station bills and contingency plans, to a certain degree,predisposes crew members to panic. Once the persons in charge of thefirefighting effort are incapacitated the command structure falls apart. Theplan collapses. Chaos ensues.

The fire willfight back. If you don't want to risk casualties then mount anindirect attack, keep clear of the beast, and prepare to abandon ship. If, onthe other hand, you do want to mount a direct attack you had better train yourcrew to deal with the loss of fire commanders and still fight.

If personnel are poorly trained the result of a direct attack gone awry is calleda rout. A door is opened, an explosion happens, people go down and it is amad stampede for the survival craft.

If training has been done well the survivors of the explosion fall back to a newfire-line with their injured and supplies, regroup, and try again. In militaryparlance it is called "falling back in good order". It is the hardest tactic to train

for. Retreat in marine firefighting is common. The ability for fire-fightingteams to operate with their primary leader down, and still maneuver in theface of a rapidly advancing fire, can only come with training far in excess ofwhat most ships normally do.

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F/V Blue North rescues part of the Galaxy's crew, as she blazes in the Bering Sea.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard.

Real Preparation for a Major Fire

Five steps are needed if a company is serious about preparing its crews formarine firefighting.

1. Station bills and contingency plans must take into account thereality of marine fire-fighting, which means:

a. Determining the suitability of the fire-fighters in regards to the type offire they are confronting. (Not all crew members are physically ormentally prepared to combat a major fire).

b. Gauging the suitability of the firefighting equipment in regards to the

type of fire confronted. (Make a direct attack on a full-blown factory firewith just one SCBA and two bottles of air? Forget it.)c. Contemplating the loss of leaders. (What are the firefighters' standing

orders if, say, the chief mate is incapacitated? Default to anotherleader? Call off the attack?)

3. The fundamentals of priority-setting, monitoring of personnel,command and control, and the necessity of a support team mustall be addressed in written plans andtraining.

4. Personnel must be trained aboard ship using live-air from theSCBA bottles monthly.

5. Personnel must be trained to act as fire-teams capable ofindependent action. Each person donning turnouts and SCBAs

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should know everyone else's job as well as their own. They must knowwhat to do when their leadership is removed, even if that just meansfalling back in good order. If team members are incapable of learningthese concepts they should not don the gear to make a direct attack onfire.

6. A support team must be capable of supplying fire team memberswith breathing air and liquids for hydration, as well as first aid forinjuries. They must be trained in their jobs.

7. Firefighters should have annual simulator training ashore, to testtheir competence, planning and equipment. This sort of trainingdoes not exist at present. It is notlike the present variety of marinefirefighting training offered. If a trainee doesn't personally go throughthree bottles of SCBA air in a simulator session the training isinsufficient.

Team members helping each other with their gear at a practice ground.

Training: It Begins and Continues Aboard Ship

STCW requirements help in regard to training. But traditional Coast Guard-certified firefighting training only teaches the rudiments of the game. Just asfive days of football practice won't prepare you for the Super Bowl, five daysof firefighting training won't prepare you for a direct attack on a major fire.Ongoing practice and coaching is needed. You need to play the game if youexpect to get good at it.

Moreover the crew must train as a team, not as individuals. What better time

to train than a fire drill? A fire drill can be a valuable learning experience.When is it? Crew members learn how to put their gear on quickly. Once this

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plateau of competency is reached little or no learning goes on afterwards. Infact, some crew members develop a mindset that just because they can dontheir gear in a drill in under a minute they are prepared for all hell breakingloose. Those persons are in for a rude awakening when the event does occur.On too many ships drills have become something akin to going to church--a

chore seriously approached and soberly conducted, but minus actual learning.

Good captains recognize the huge problem of making drills realistic, of givingan edge to a fire drill to shake their crew from complacency. The need for thisis enormous if the crew is to have any competency in firefighting. The captainwill have to face resistance from the crewmembers themselves. If no one issweating, if a few sore muscles and bruised egos aren't endured on the roadto proficiency, little or no learning is going on. To be truthful there will be shipswhere, for a variety of reasons (physical and mental), crews cannot begoaded into any kind of efficient firefighting force. It is best for captains tolearn this information before a major fire breaks out aboard ship. Station bills

must be drafted and contingency plans written with the individual capabilitiesof the crew members in mind. Not a simple task.

After devising a realistic scenario of shipboard fire, a captain should conduct afire drill with the participants in turnouts operating SCBAs on live-air. A smokemachine would be a great aid. After witnessing the crews' performance aknowledgeable captain should be able to see their weaknesses.

The deficiencies should then be addressed during drills aboard ship A periodof time before or after a drill should be set aside for teaching each crewmember the basics: SCBA operation. Proper movement in the Hot Zone. Howto find your way out of a space in zero visibility. To be honest many captainsare more or less ignorant about these subjects themselves, and will have toread manuals and perhaps attend firefighting courses again to becomeproficient.

Once the rudiments have been learned (or relearned) the real work starts:training the crew to function as a group, so that if one team member isincapacitated the group can still function, if only to fall back in good order.Molding each team member into a leader is neither desirable orpractical. The goal is to train crew members to make fundamental

decisions that will preserve life.

A training technique towards this end is rotating different crew membersthrough the fire commander position during firefighting drills. The actual firecommander can stand back and observe the performance of the fire teamsand revise contingency plans based on the competency of the crew.

The SCBAs need to be activated in at least one drill a month. The low-airalarms need to ring. People have to swap out bottles from pressurized units.Drills done by simply breathing ambient air out the masks' disconnectedbreathing tube won't cut it. SCBAs are deceptively complex to operate. For

example, in training at my company I find personnel that still don't rememberthat SCBA bottles have safety devices which must be actuated to close the

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valve. (Luckily these are people new to the company). In simulator trainingprecious minutes are lost and SCBAs are rendered inoperable by poorlytrained people trying to change out bottles. If those persons had used live-airduring drills the mistakes would not have been made.

Training Aids

In addition to the ship's own fire-fighting gear only a few props are needed forrealistic training aboard ship. Smoke machines are invaluable. A small smokemachine, perfectly adequate for training purposes, costs as little as $75. Thesmoke (usually a fog of water-based glycerin compounds) is non-toxic andnon-flammable. Larger machines costing around $500-$800 can flood thesuperstructure of a 200' long vessel with fog in minutes, especially if aided bya common fan. The fog will even trip smoke alarms. The fog is extremely

clean. The only place residue might be a problem is a very small compartmentafter the machine has been left on for a considerable time.

Having crew members accustomed to working in zero-visibility is just onebenefit of a smoke machine. Another is checking the ventilation patternsaboard ship and testing the effectiveness of ventilation closures. Training witha smoke machine aboard a Coastal Transportation ship disclosed a largeventilation leak between the engineroom fidley and the galley. If a fire hadbroken out in the engineroom the galley would have quickly been flooded withsmoke. Good information for the ship's officers to know.

To simulate the seat of the fire red Christmas tree lights work well, especiallyin conjunction with fog.

Hose handling is a vital fire-fighting skill. Going about the interior of the shipwith a fully charged hose during a drill is enough to give most officers theshivers. Yet in simulator training I see attacks either stymied or slowed byfailure of the support team to feed hose to the fire teams in the Hot Zone. Forrealistic training a charged hose is desirable. Fittings can be cobbled togetherto inflate the fire hose with compressed air. This gives the trainees theawkwardness of a charged hose to contend with, if not the weight.

If the crew size allows it a useful piece of training gear is a video camera or,better yet, two. While Coastal Transportation has its own firefighting simulator,shipboard fire drills are sometimes conducted at the dock to see how crewsperform in a more familiar environment. The drills are realistically staged witha minimum of equipment. Smoke machines are used. Officers from thecompany are called in to play the part of Coast Guard personnelcommunicating with the wheelhouse via sideband radio. During these drillstwo video cameramen record the drill. One follows the actions of the person inthe wheelhouse. The other cameraman follows the firefighters. At the end ofthe session the tapes are shown simultaneously on side-by-side televisions.

This technique allows each "half" of the operation to see what the other was

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doing. It was instrumental, for example, in proving to some captains that tryingto run the firefighting operation from the wheelhouse is disastrous.

Reviewing just a single videotape after a drill is a wonderful way of debriefingcrew members on their performance.

At this point many a reader shakes his or her head. They have heard it before:sermons preaching more training. And they know it will never happen,because of the brick wall called cost.

The Fallacy of Expensive Training

Many is the captain who has marched into his home office demanding his orher crew be better equipped and trained in firefighting. Most march out emptyhanded after being told the cost of such training makes it impossible. Theargument that unpreparedness will cost more than training in the long run is

quickly countered by the port captain's grumbling about keeping the companyafloat in precarious financial times.

Firefighting equipment is like any other consumer good. You can buy theMaserati of gear or the Ford Taurus. You can buy new gear or old.

A great ship's cook will boast he or she can make a delicious dinner out ofbeans and cardboard. An experienced fitter will say the best torch in the worldis whatever is in his hand. The fanciest equipment in the world will nevermake up for lack of practice in using it.

A single SCBA can cost $3,000, a new bottle $375, a set of fireman's turnouts$1000. On the other hand, reconditioned SCBAs can be purchased for lessthan $400, and reconditioned air bottles for less than $100. It is a shoestringoperation that can't afford to spend $90, say, every other month for another airbottle. Do this for a year and you have six bottles. If a company is serious andaggressive enough the equipment can be purchased at a reasonable priceover time. Nor does it make sense to buy all the equipment at once.Equipment is useless without training and training will take time. Not onesimulator session but months of work at drills, using the fully activated stock ofSCBAs and bottles you slowly build up.

SCBAs and Air

An army marches on its stomach. A fire-fighting operation marches oncompressed breathing air.

I have been on boats with a grand total of four SCBA air bottles. I have beenon ships with upwards of twenty bottles and a special compressor to refillthem. What is common with all operations is that no one wants to use the airin the bottles, lest they be caught with a reduced supply in case of a fire.

The truth is that unless some of the air is used in training the rest isnearly worthless. Sending someone in to fight a major fire without recent,

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meaningful experience operating a SCBA is begging for serious injury ordeath. SCBA operation absent this training should be relegated to rescuingtrapped personnel or reaching fixed fire system activation controls, rather thanused for direct attack on fires.

Each person designated to be on a fire team should go through acomplete bottle of air in a single drill at least every month. For mostvessels this means four to six bottles of air reserved just for training.

The bottles can be filled at the local dive shop, or if the locals are friendly, thefire station. But I cannot stress enough that unless some of the bottles areemptied in training on a regular basis, the rest are nearly worthless.

A Primer on SCBA Bottles

For more detailed information on SCBAs check this link.

SCBA bottle construction comes in three types: the fiberglass (aka compositebottle), aluminum, and steel.

Professional firefighters prefer the composite bottle. Composites weigh lessthan the solid metal types but are twice as expensive and have a limitedlifetime. Solid metals bottles have no expiration as long as they are in goodcondition.

Aluminum bottles are lighter than steel. But steel bottles are available on the

surplus market for less than $100 vs. $175 for a reconditioned aluminumbottle and $375 for a new composite. The $4600 dollars that will buy a state-of-the-art SCBA and 8 composite bottles will also buy you a reconditionedworkhorse of a SCBA and 24 used steel bottles. The air doesn't care what'swrapped around it. Quantity is all-important. Better you have fourhonorably scarred, heavy bottles of air than a single bright shinycomposite.

24 bottles of air? Are we planning to build a fire department? Do the math.

Let's say you intend to fight a fire for two hours. You rotate your firefighters

every ten minutes. After two hours of fire fighting you will use 24 bottles of air.If you are contemplating a direct attack on a major fire you had better put thatfire out before your air runs out. A half extinguished fire, like a woundedanimal, can be the most dangerous of all. Don't skimp on air.

Air Compressors

A few vessels (besides diving-support boats) have breathing-air compressorsaboard, either the portable dive-bottle type or a built-in installation. Theyrequire a trained operator. On one ship I was on no one knew how to operatethe compressor and the captain refused to let anyone practice lest they blow

themselves up. The smaller portable compressors can take up to 20 minutesto fill a bottle. 20 minutes is a lifetime in firefighting. Large installations can fill

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up a bottle in seconds from a reservoir tank. What happens, however, whenthe fire outstrips the compartment the unit is housed in? You and yourequipment must be prepared to bug-out when your position is overrun. In theend, it is easier to do this with individual air bottles. Cost, too, dictates yourdecision. Is it better to have a $5000 compressor or 50 bottles of air ready for

use?

The Role of Marine Firefighting Training Facilities

Due to STCW training firefighting simulators have proliferated on both coasts.More of these simulators are privately owned, and because of thisincreasingly creative and realistic in the training they provide.

Creativity is limited by the realities of regulatory life. Most people attend afirefighting school to receive accreditation towards gaining a license orcertificate. The curriculum, dictated by government regulation, is "one size fits

all". The school's operator has fixed costs to meet, which means combiningtrainees from different trades together in a class. The AB from a fishing boattrains with the mate from a tanker and the cook from a research vessel. Shipsfrom different trades vary widely in both crew size and fitness, in ship'sconstruction, equipment and type of fire likely to be a threat. As a result atrainee gets an excellent beginner course on firefighting in general, but not inorganizing his or her own crew for firefighting on their particular ship with theirown gear.

"Practice Fields"

It falls to the captain to provide this next level of training. In support of thatfirefighting schools need to make their services available not only as places ofinstruction but also as "practice fields". I can envision a day when crews rent afire training facility for two or three hours, just to practice the tactics they haddrilled with in the previous year, using gear brought with them from their ownboat. Coastal Transportation Inc. is fortunate in having its own Coast Guardcertified fire-fighting simulator. Here ship's crews are trained as a unit, usingonly the gear taken from their own ships. It is not at all unusual for gear tobreak down during training. Training, therefore, not only evaluates thepersonnel but also the gear.

Not all marine fire training facilities would lend themselves to this "practice-field" role. For the smaller facilities it could prove a useful niche market, aslong as rates could be held down to make the program palatable to the frontoffice.

Conclusion

I hope I have convinced the average mariner that firefighting preparation onAlaskan fishing boats and allied vessels is generally inadequate. Not fromcheapness on the part of ship-owners or sloth on the part of crews, but rather

ignorance of just how vicious and fast moving a major fire at sea can be.Mariners in the Alaska Trade are no more remiss in this than any other

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seamen. Training for firefighting need not be grossly expensive, nor needmost of it take place in simulators ashore. Catastrophes such as befell the F/VGalaxyserve as a wake-up call to us all to go beyond basic firefightingcourses and cookie-cutter contingency plans, and prepare for the worst thesea can offer.

a new view of marine firefighting.doc

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