Containership fires are of growing concern in the shipping and wider supply chain industries and opinion formers among carriers and bodies such as TNI and P& I Clubs are trying to do something about it.

The new MARS report raises some disturbing questions. “The complexities and interconnected risks of large modern container ships, including loading of certain dangerous cargoes below deck, may have outstripped the current accepted best practices and fire-fighting arrangements, not to mention fire-fighting training of crews on these ships,” it warns.
 
The report tells of a fire on a modern very large container vessel. When the alarm sounded in no. 3 cargo hold, efforts were made to close the natural ventilation flaps (16 per side), but heavy smoke and heat made this impossible on the port side.
 
Successive releases of CO₂ had little effect on the blaze, and most of the crew were ordered to the bridge. However, acrid smoke entered the wheelhouse, causing panic, resulting in the crew abandoning ship in four separate groups. Of the 27 on board, 23 survived to reach the lifeboats, though one later died.
 
The fire appears to have started in a stowage of 55 containers of sodium dichloroisocyanurate dihydrate (SDID).
 
The full report of this incident, which is believed to relate to the MAERSK HONAN incident in 2018, is available here.

The Transport Safety Investigation Bureau of Singapore, which carried out the investigation into MAERSK HONAN, as flag state competent authority, is lobbying for SDID to be reclassed from IMDG 9 (“miscellaneous”) to 5.1 (“oxidising substances”). Following a recent TT Club/UK P&I Club webinar, an article probing the IMDG classification system is being published in the March edition of WorldCargo News.