Fire on ship in Southampton docks (From Daily Echo)
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Fire on ship in Southampton docks
1:00pm Saturday 3rd October 2009 in News
FIRE crews from Southampton were dispatched to the city's docks last night after a fire was discovered in the hold of a cargo ship carrying 1,900 tonnes of wheat pellets.
The Dutch vessel was diverted to the port at 5.30pm yesterday as it was off the coast of West Sussex.
It was established that the cargo of 1,900 tonnes of pelleted wheat was smouldering.
Some of the burning cargo was place near the 2,500 tonne vessel's diesel tank.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service liaised with HM Coastguard and East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service Maritime Incident Support Group (MIRG) who had four team members winched onto the ship by helicopter off the coast at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex to asses the vessel.
The cargo was then battened down in the hatch and the fire contained by the MIRG firefighters who stayed on the ship until it reached Southampton after 1am this morning.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service dispatched a total of 24 firefighters and 5 officers to the scene where dock cranes removed around 250 tonnes of smouldering wheat which was extinguished on the quayside.
Fire fighters used breathing apparatus and hose reel jets to put out the fire and thermal imaging equipment to check for any more hot spots before leaving the scene just after 7am this morning.
Watch Manager Shaun Cheeseman from St Marys Fire Station said: "The firefighters worked in arduous conditions throughout the night and had it not been for their actions this could have been a much more serious incident".
Comments(4)
OSPREYSAINT
says...
10:15pm Sat 3 Oct 09
snapperdownunder
says...
11:11am Sun 4 Oct 09
I would have thought the name of the ship would have come into the story somewhere.
I do however like the idea of low-flying popcorn.
southy
says...
10:31pm Sun 4 Oct 09
fire's on this sort of cargo happens a lot, most of the time it just burns it self out, and is not noticed by the crew that the goods are on fire, you dont get a flames or a lot of smoke, what happens is that items like this wheat pellets they get damp or wet while in storeage or loading up the ship, while the cargo remains damp or wet, its starts to break down and secondry action is that it generates heat, this soon becomes super generated heat, and burns the same way has if your making charcoal, with little or no oxygen, you dont tend to see smoke unless the fire is near the surface, where it can be fed with oxygen, and when its that close theres a chance of flames, often you find that this type of cargo has caught on fire and the first they know of this is when they discharge the cargo, then come across a spot that the wheat pellet are nothing but charcoal.
10 Minute Man says...
12:00pm Sat 3 Oct 09