Technical Fire Discussion

[zackiedawg]

Been away for the weekend…boy, did this thread grow! Good to see though; this is the one thread about the fire that should remain, as it has been quite civil, and lots of theories and rational discussion and questions.

 

In looking at some of the cabin pictures, I’ve seen some interesting tidbits. First of all, the cabin pic referenced by ‘wookie’ was definitely a cabin below the fire, and appears to be from drop-down debris…the mat is actually burned significantly, under the chairs, which appear to have been melted down first. So we do know that the chairs AND the mats are capable of burning…and being composite, man-made chemical materials, they likely burn quite hot. From the shot of the fire while raging, you can clearly see the balcony dividers fully engulfed. And it appears that there are some very hot ‘jets’ of flame emanating from a few areas of the balconies…indicating a chemical-based substance burning out its initial flammables. In another shot from a burned balcony, you can see the remaining legs of a patio chair only charred, the rest of the chair completely melted away, and the entire blue matting burned away. Also noticeable is the absence of a balcony divider, which appears to have burnt completely away. This picture was from a balcony which did not burn its aluminum structure…but clearly all of the balcony materials burned quite efficiently. The chairs and tables might have been a self-extinguishing material, as they did not completely burn away, but the balcony dividers and blue floor matting seem to have burned entirely in this zone.

 

Another interesting thing from two different pictures is the kick-plates at the balcony rails. In at least two of the pictures, these did not appear to be a Plexiglas material – there was no melt or burn indication on either. What it does look like is tempered glass – in both cases, these appeared to have shattered from the intensity of the heat burning on the balcony, and seem to show the fractured and marbled remains of tempered glass. Does anyone know for sure if these are tempered glass or Plexiglas?

 

As for the necessary ‘accelerant’…those with fire investigating or fighting backgrounds use this term in its technical form, but I fear some people here might be reading this in a more specific, public definition. An accelerant is simply the agent by which a fire can spread or increase in intensity. It does NOT indicate arson, or an applied flammable liquid. I think when some people hear the term ‘accelerant’, they immediately picture gasoline or some other highly flammable liquid intentionally used to start a fire. An accelerant does not have to be a liquid. Any material which can amplify the ignition source can be an accelerant, and chemical flammables can be found in far more common materials than people consider. For example, polyester is a manmade chemical material with high flammability. When it burns, it returns to a plasticized state. A person burned wearing such an artificial material will find that, unlike cloth, the material can actually melt onto and into the skin. Because it is a plastic-based material, it burns hot. Moreover, polyester fibers burn extremely long, and hold heat very well. They melt down to a semi-liquid when burning, making them spread easily. Also, materials which are ‘nappy’, or looped, like terry cloth, burn more easily than flatter materials, as the material strands are thinner and have more space to breathe to sustain a flame. That makes robes and towels a good source to accelerate a small or smoldering fire. Especially if anyone can verify whether Princess uses cotton or cotton blends for their robes and towels.

 

Balconies can sometimes get moist from the ship’s movement…but not always. I have had several ships where my balcony rarely if ever had any moisture or salt spray – unless we were passing through a rainstorm. On the Zuiderdam, my balcony remained dry and salt-free at all times, and on Coral Princess, the mini-suite near aft was perfectly dry even with a partially exposed deck. Wind direction, ocean conditions, height from the sea, proximity to the bowspray line, and prevailing temperatures and humidity are all factors which affect whether a balcony gets wet or stays dry. And I can say from experience that I often left towels, wet shirts, shorts, and bathing suits on the balcony to dry…I’m sure many others have as well. My bathing suits are almost always synthetic materials such as nylon, poly-blend, etc. which are flammable and would burn as a hotter chemical fire.

 

I agree that the fire does not necessarily have to have been the fault of the person whose cabin it started from…a cigarette, match, or other ignition could have been dropped or blown onto a lower balcony. I do still find the most likely accelerant to segue the fire from smoldering cigarette/match/paper/electrical spark would be an article of clothing, robe, or towel. I think these would burn hot enough and long enough, and with enough heat, to ignite the plastic chairs on which they were lying. And those chairs, falling over or melting down, would ignite either the balcony divider or the floor matting, which would burn with a much higher and more intense heat. I find it perfectly feasible that the fire wasn’t noticed until one or two balconies were fully engulfed – the cabin residents likely had their door closed and thick blinds pulled, and being in deepest REM sleep by 3am wouldn’t have been easily woken. The monitors on the side of the ship may not have been displayed on the security monitors, if indeed there are more cameras than monitors…or the person/persons monitoring could have been distracted or doing something else for a time. The initial fire probably generated a large amount of very thick, acrid black smoke, which might have blended in with the dark ocean background on a rearward-facing, B&W camera, so that even looking at the monitor, it might not have been until the flames were leaping out from the balcony before it was noticed. By the time the fire fully engulfed one balcony and was burning the dividers and licking the balcony above, it was already too far along to stop with any simple extinguisher or fire hose.

 

All possibilities remain feasible at the moment – from cigarettes to arson to electrical. Hopefully, the cabin where the fire originated still retains enough clues to help determine how this started – but the melting of the aluminum balcony structure might mean the balcony on which the fire started has completely melted away. Investigators will then have to sift through debris and burn residue on the balconies below, where most of the fire’s original material residue would have ended up…though significant firefighting efforts, especially if boats were pumping ocean water on the fire, could have washed a large amount of debris, and evidence, into the ocean.

[wraithe]

If foam was available I recall it cut the glow of the burning frames. Slowed the fuel from igniting.

 

Good,old AFFF, basically soapy water for those of you not familiar, great for Class B (liquid fuel fires) since it "floats" on the surface of the fuel and blocks the fumes that are burning. Learned during the Forrestal (Forrest Fire) fire that you have to let the foam work, they washed a lot of the foam over the side off the flight deck and the fuels kept reigniting.

 

Think that "halon"?? stuff came in after Vietnam and what? also took all the oxygen out of the armored vehicle, but guess the tank would not be so damaged? :confused:

 

Only saw one halon system in my career, and the worst danger for personnel was noise, if you can believe it. It came out of the dispersal system at such high speed that the noise level would disorient personnel:eek: in the vicinity.

 

Heart Attacks are still killers in today's military during any stressful or dangerous activities. I know from personal experience: a lot of cruisers have heart disease. One has to weigh the risks. Trusting that you youngsters will pick up my wheelchair and get me out of harm's way.

 

Doc

 

Just before my first patrol, an otherwise healthy Yeoman Chief on the other crew suffered a heart attack and died, apparently due to stress from an inspection! If I'm on a cruise with you Doc, I'll do everything I can to make sure you get topside. Thanks for serving in the thankless war.

[EDnLISA]

Are there anymore ships on order of that class? If so, one option would be to sail back to the shipyard in Italy to have the entire section replaced taking parts from another under construction.

 

Also, here is another webshots picture of what it looks like looking up from a balcony on Star Princess:

 

Looking Up

 

Possibly looks like a sprinkler head up there??

 

I used to be a marine pipefitter in the shipbuilding industry when the USA still had a few shipyards. The picture is not that clear but that appears to be piping for a deck drain.The fire suppression systems that I worked on included water, CO2 and halon which are used in different areas of the ship as explained by the fire experts in previous posts.

[TinAngel]

My father was a CPO, then LDO as Navy his family from the 1930's to 1980's. My own legacy is that I likely know more about WWII to 1980's submarines than any Army. Dad long after his 30 years in the USN retained contract work on subs via Value Engineering out of Norfolk. Did cruises as in checking out equipment upgrades. Lived in Rota and Holy Loch for years but he liked Naples, Italy the best. You may well have met my father.

 

Few firefighters get the training USN CPO does in fire and disaster management. I spent a few days on the SSBN 629 Daniel Boone when she did the Panama Canal transit. Seems everyone smoked? As a youth in every station I had the monoploy for selling newspapers on the Sub Tenders and subs. In the late 1950's and such there was real issue of security.

 

Does the cruise line crew get any "real hands on" training like at Great Lakes or New London? I cannot imagine how they accomplished what they did. I just watched (as the "Doc") aviation flightline drills and was terrified from the heat and that sickly smell of foam: like clotted blood. Could never do duty on a sub; one can always exit from an aircraft. Not from inside a sub or ship.

Slient Service Silent Heroes

 

Doc

[dchip]

to all who have posted so much information on this thread in a calm and respectful manner. I have learned a great deal.

 

Justin, I have enjoyed following your train of thought as you are obviously turning all of this around in your head!!!! also seems like we have something more in common than cruises!!!!

 

Cheers, Denise....yes, that dchip ;-))

[Saga Ruby]

Welcome back, Justin. I am shocked - shocked! - that you would go away for the weekend and leave this marvelous thread. But your input and possible scenarios are, as always, most informative.

 

Does anybody know if any of the hotel staff is counted amongst the firefighting crew onboard? Or does the sailing staff supply the firefighters? My thought is that a fire can spread so rapidly, there must be increasing levels of support from the entire ship's staff by need.

 

Wraithe - you said, "Thanks for serving in the thankless war." To all you veterans from any war, my thanks and appreciation for your service. I travel internationally a lot and I have often said that my most precious hard asset is my U.S. passport. It is with thanks to you vets that lets me come home to America as we know it. And by the bye, I haven't bought a "Jane Fonda" movie ticket nor rented a movie since "the thankless war."

[zackiedawg]

Hey Denise...nice to see you here too! I guess we both share at least two interests, huh! I do love cruising - and also have always been a bit of a science nerd. Observational investigation, be it fire research, archaeology, or geology and tectonics, are all favorite topics of mine.

 

While I certainly reserve any assertions of the cause of this fire until the experts release their findings from extensive hands-on investigation, I do find it interesting to have some healthy debate and discussion about the potential causes, and I certainly have a theory about the fire which I find most likely in my mind. But I do remain open to any other potential cause. Without being there, hands-on, with the proper forensic and investigatory tools, nobody on these boards with any amount of training or knowledge can state a fact as to how this happened, including myself.

 

I just hope everyone who went through this can recover and get back to normalcy, and that the ship can be quickly repaired, finding no failures or faults in the staff or construction of the ship. Let's hope that's the outcome.

[bdjam]

Don’t know if this has been noted on any of the threads, but Princess’ latest news release indicated that Star Princess sailed from Montego Bay and is headed for Freeport in the Bahamas where there is a shipyard/dry dock. Princess has also officially cancelled the April 2 sailing and offered 100% refund, 25% cruise credit and will pay the cost of air fare for those affected. I think this is costing Princess a bundle. I wonder how much insurance will cover?

I just hope they don’t refit her with MUTS while they put her back together (sorry – I couldn’t resist). :D

[Capt_BJ]

A few technical tidbits

 

No disrespect to the firefighters expressing their opinions here but note that fire fighting on ships and firefighting ashore are different. True, the 'triangle' is the same but proper procedure is widely different. For graphic examples or why, see the story of the SS NORMANDIE

http://www.worldshipny.com/normandie.html circa 1942 which was essentialy sunk by the fire fighting efforts

 

or more recently the SCANDINAVIAN SUN which would have suffered the same fate had she not touched bottom, due to the back and forth 'discussion' between shore techniques and afloat techniques which left the fire burning for DAYS.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/moa/boards/scandnavian.pdf

Fortunately in this case, as with NORMANDIE, the ship was pierside and all passangers were off.

 

A side effect of the NORMANDIE fire was the design of the SS UNITED STATES, lauded as nearly fire proof due to extreme reduction in use of combustables....lots of aluminum tho. We've learned that aluminum burns too.... the Coast Guard operates a specialized shipboard fire research facility to learn about these differences. Issues include the metal construction which more effectively channels heat; ventilation versus smothering due to the contained environment; access limitations; stability impacts of fire fighting water....and more.

 

With regard to how easily a fire can start, it is easy to say that a cigarette can't...a spark can't.....it is 1 in a million...but read the report of the ECSTASY. One spark from a welder and some lint:

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2001/MAR0101.pdf

also if you can find the pictures you will note that tossing fire fighting water up 6 or 8 stories isn't as easy as it looks.....I don't think the lifeboat/tender pumps would be much help....

 

 

With regard to on board capabilities....a ship must be prepared to be totally self sufficient. A fire on a cruise ship is a bad nightmare where the arrival of outside resources can be measured in days...not minutes. ESCTACY happened literally in the port of Miami - imagine the same thing say 200 miles from Jamacia....no power, no tugs to throw water and tow her back in. While the CG can sometime MEDIVAC by helo, that doesn't help much with the delivery of firefighters. For another interesting read of a cruiseship fire at sea, try:

New Amsterdam May 2000

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2001/MBR0101.pdf

 

Lastly to those Navy vets out there - a lot has changed...beginning with the lessons learned from STARK and augmented by COLE there's been a lot of new equipment and procedures brought into the world of shipboard damage control. A lot of it learned from the shore side guys .... turnout suits, and air paks in lieu of OBAs just for starters ... thermal imagers, improved cutting tools and plenty more....

 

I'm anxious to see the eventual reports on this one too.....

[jetskier]

Someone had asked about alarms on the bridge. There are two that should have been automatic. The smoke detector(s) which should have shown which zone was activated on the fire panel. Also when the sprinkler(s) were activated by the heat, there should have a been an indication of a drop in pressure on the fire main for that section.

 

Dave

[Princess Chatterer]

"According to Mrs. Bostrom [who directly viewed the fire from her balcony] it was another twenty minutes before the ships alarm was sounded."

 

http://story.jamaicantimes.com/p.x/ct/9/id/357a0cb52122d0f4/cid/8fdef8065235cb7f/

[Tater1800]

"According to Mrs. Bostrom [who directly viewed the fire from her balcony] it was another twenty minutes before the ships alarm was sounded."

 

http://story.jamaicantimes.com/p.x/ct/9/id/357a0cb52122d0f4/cid/8fdef8065235cb7f/

 

Not to call this poor lady a liar but I find this hard to believe. I doubt she kept an eye on one clock for that time. More likely she noted the time on one clock and then again on another. No two clocks have the same time. If she was estimating the time then all bets are off. Minutes can seem like hours during a panic situation.

[alibail]

Not to call this poor lady a liar but I find this hard to believe. I doubt she kept an eye on one clock for that time. More likely she noted the time on one clock and then again on another. No two clocks have the same time. If she was estimating the time then all bets are off. Minutes can seem like hours during a panic situation.

 

Also, why was she standing there just watching it for 20 minutes!!!!!

 

I believe the fire alarm will activate on the bridge and in the isolated compartment, not throughout the entire ship.

 

The 'muster' alarm can only be sounded from the bridge - and it is the captains decision so he would have to be woken, and it is likley that they waited to ensure that it was an actual fire before waking the entire ship up if say it was a false alarm.

 

ps. my applogies for editing this so many times!

[ricker]

Capt Geir-Arne of Seabourn's Legend has some excellent recent photos of fire fighting courses (in Norway?). They are at the bottom of his web page labeled "Last Additions" , Mar 22, 2006. They show some of the latest equipment and escape techniques used on ships and oil platforms.

 

http://www.captain-ga.com/

[bdjam]

No disrespect to the firefighters expressing their opinions here but note that fire fighting on ships and firefighting ashore are different. True, the 'triangle' is the same but proper procedure is widely different. For graphic examples or why, see the story of the SS NORMANDIE

http://www.worldshipny.com/normandie.html circa 1942 which was essentialy sunk by the fire fighting efforts

Normandie sank because the U.S. Navy was negligent. She had been impounded by the U.S. and was in the process of being turned into a troop ship when she caught fire. When she began to list because the water being poured on the fire made her top-heavy, rather than letting her designer go on board to help stabilize her, he was denied access to the ship and she capsized. Normandie did not have to be lost (just a little trivia).

"According to Mrs. Bostrom [who directly viewed the fire from her balcony] it was another twenty minutes before the ships alarm was sounded."

Hasn’t it already been noted that initial alarms are silent and are sounded on the bridge? Given as hot as that fire looks, it seems to me 20 minutes would have resulted in casualties, but it’s a good bet that the crew on the bridge knew about the fire and were taking action to address it before the call to muster.

[TinAngel]

Interesting

 

Not far off on each extreme.

 

The USN CPO and Captain know this: if, and I presume the Star's Captain did

have a crewman with radio on site in a few minutes at most. It is possible as I read other accounts the crew and fellow passanger's announced the fire in the threat areas to passengers.

 

It is believable that the Captain delayed (in quotes) sounding the alarm if he was told where and what was going on. Then it gets fast and dicey. You call a Muster, well this is not "General Quarters" or an infantry "Stand to" but where life gets lost. The old folks are at risk (me guys). Deaths will occur.

 

Best quote: seconds seem like minutes. Exactly. Not idle speculation either.

We all know that the fire teams are moving fast as they can, calling a Muster before a professional crew is posted is dangerous. When (yes a war story) as

young lad on a Navy troop transport, well trust me we would have freaked out were not the crew posted to assist. Cannot have civilians running amuck.

 

Just my educated guess. Delay is accepatable. Panic is not. I thought I read that evacuation was started, then the alarm (horn) sounded with PA announcements. Like being on that troop ship or LST: let the sailors tell us where to go and better yet: let us off. We did not have quite enough "life boats" but we did have those rafts and such.

 

Suspect both the two clock issue and her age. But no panic. One lost soul who I see he was career USAF, special prayers for him. Miracle. I suspect the Captain used judgement born of experience.

 

DOC

 

PS

 

Yes, I "lied" to alot of folks as to the actual situation versus the reality while in the service. Mostly what we called "quibble" Sure, you will be fine, Yes, relief is on the way, listened to my Aircraft Commander say "No problem, Sir"

to his CO and then we dropped out of the sky and rescued soldiers, Marines and a few sailors. Until proven otherwise: the "Skipper" is well "The Man" responsible for everything. I had good "Skippers" I grew old.

[Firefighterhoop]

Larry and FFHoop can continue with class. I think today's lessons should be Incident Command and Principles of Hydraulics. :D

 

Off to work...cya CW

 

I think that your comment gives me a chuckle. The reason you didn't read a reply from me from late friday to late sunday is that I was in a Incident command structure and operation class over the weekend.:D

 

 

 

"It is believable that the Captain delayed (in quotes) sounding the alarm if he was told where and what was going on. Then it gets fast and dicey. You call a Muster, well this is not "General Quarters" or an infantry "Stand to" but where life gets lost. The old folks are at risk (me guys). Deaths will occur".

 

 

I absolutely agree with the above poster for stating this! The second you sound an alarm at 3am, even if there was no fire at all, you have just freaked out 2700 people because essentially they are thinking the sky is falling. Now add to that that a significant amount of poeple are seeing and smelling fire/smoke and are being told to move quickly, and you have just created a situation that is dangerous to everyone.

 

With that being said, it makes much more sence to attempt a knockdown of the fire right away, and see what progress you are making before alerting the passengers. I guaruntee the people in any danger were alerted with crew opening their door and getting them out of harms way (Obviously when the crew was activated, some right away had to find out for themselves). I am sure as soon as the fire command staff figured out that they couldn't contain the fire to cabins, as it was traveling between balconies, that they immediately notified the bridge that they were having a hard time containing the fire and they powers that be decided that mustering the passengers was necessary for life and safety at that point.

 

FF Scott huppert

[Host Anne]

Hello all ~ I attempted to post this link to more photos earlier but the board bombed out on me (sorry). Here's some additional shots I haven't seen before from a South Florida tv station.

 

http://www.nbc6.net/slideshow/news/8208494/detail.html?qs=;s=6;p=news;dm=ss;w=400

 

Going back to catch up on this thread from where I left off this AM.

[CruiseWacker23]

Scott...hope you enjoyed your class! Ah yes, and its funny how now we seem to be talking about IC strategies, concerns and priortities.

When you roll up on a "working fire" and you know its going to go multiple alarms, you develope your IAP (Incident Action Plan), take care of life safety concerns, assess and get required resources on the way and even though you might sound 2nd alarm right away, have them stage Level 2 (in a staging area somewhere off site) until you know exactly where you want them and when you want them. Otherwise they get in the way and you can't get established correctly. I'm sure the Master of the Star followed these guidelines, with variations as shipboard firefighting dictates. As stated by Capt BJ, marine firefighting isn't like what I'm used to and they know what works and what doesn't work on a ship. I've said it before many times, the crew of the Star had a HUGE task before them and with only one death (a heart attack) and a couple of handfulls of smoke inhalations, it seems to me they did an outstanding job.

The bottom line is after the investigation is complete and the results are made public, any new found deficiencies in the onboard fire protection systems are addressed. Thats what fire codes are based on...lessons learned the hard way. Remember the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire? Remember the Cocoanut Grove? Remember the Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire? As long as we learn from the lessons and don't just shrug them off, the system works.

[Saga Ruby]

I think early on that I slipped on a premise and sprawled to a conclusion. Back when the news media first reported a death on the Star, I thought that the poor man had lit a cigarette, fallen asleep, and the cigarette had smoldered into a fire fed by cruising-speed winds.

 

But we don't know that yet, do we? Where Mr. Liffridge's cabin was or if he was near the source of the fire?

 

The lady who reported watching the fire for twenty minutes - you mean a witness might be wrong? I'm surprised. Oh, wait. No I'm not.

[ckgonska]

I have some high resolution photos (7MP) of the fire that I took at about 3:15.

 

My cabin was about 6 cabins (on deck 9) from the fire.

 

Ken Gonska

[bhopal21]

Very interesting pictures Host Anne.

 

I am intrigued by pictures 7 and 8 that depict a single cabin burned on Dolphin deck (9). Just thinking out loud . . . . . .if that was caused by falling embers/debri wouldn't you think more than one Dolphin deck cabin would have been affected?

 

Other's thoughts?

 

Mike

[Cruise Cat]

Saga Ruby - You just beat me to it. One of the main things I was always taught in root cause training, and learned the hard way a time or two myself, is that "eyewitnesses" are usually wrong. No disrespect to anyone, it's just one of those facts of cause investigation. Doesn't matter if you take personnel statements 5 minutes after something happened from 3 people standing right next to each other, cause the inconsistancies will drive you nuts. They merely give you things to investigate further. For the fire indications and alarms I would first go to the sequence of events recorder for the main fire panel on the bridge, the other recorders, and of course the ships logs ( a little more reliable than eyewitnesses, but not perfect). The maintenance records of all the the recorders and such would also have to be checked to ensure they were calibrated, etc. There are numerous other "hard data" sources I am sure they will use.

[Cruise Cat]

CKGONSKA - If you want to send it to BBOSTON999 at Comcast dot Net I would be more than glad to look at them! You can send them unedited as my connection and PC can handle anything.

[Host Anne]

ckgonska ~ first of all, I'm hoping that you are doing well after this very frightening experience. Thanks so much for checking in here .... I'm sure everyone would like to hear more from you on your experiences and thoughts on the situation onboard Star.

 

If you are willing to share your photos, please try to email them to me (email address is below).

 

Thanks again and I do hope you and those traveling with you are doing OK.