Fire on Board the Liberian Passenger Ship Ecstasy, Miami, Florida ...

Analysis 62 Marine Accident Reportsprinkler coverage of the vessel’s mooring decks. The company also began a program ofretrofitting the mooring decks of its existing cruise ships with deluge sprinkler systems.According to Carnival Cruise Lines’ senior officials, the aim of the company is to installsprinkler protection on the mooring decks of all its ships by the end of 2001. The SafetyBoard applauds Carnival Cruise Line’s past and continuing efforts to improve fire safetyon the ships in its fleet.The flag administration for the Ecstasy before the accident had categorized thevessel’s mooring station as an open deck, which meant that the area was not required tohave smoke detectors or sprinklers. If the mooring station had been equipped withdetectors, the bridge would have received earlier notification of a fire site. In addition, ifsprinklers had been installed and had activated on the mooring deck, the water may haveextinguished the ignited lint before the mooring line caught fire. At the least, water fromactivated sprinklers would have knocked down the flames of the mooring deck fire, whichprobably would have enabled shipboard firefighters to enter the mooring station andcombat the fire. The Safety Board concludes that if an automatic fire suppression systemhad been installed on the mooring deck, the fire on the Ecstasy would have been locatedand extinguished much sooner, thereby minimizing the extent of fire damage on the vesseland aft mooring deck.As it was, the high fuel load on the mooring deck caused extensive damage. Themooring station had 11 mooring lines, each measuring 220-meters and weighing about900 pounds. The line itself is not easy to ignite. Inspection of a sister vessel showed thatlarge amounts of easily ignitable lint had accumulated on the mooring deck and hadbecome imbedded in the stored mooring lines. Assuming that the Ecstasy had a similaraccumulation of lint, the fire venting from the mangle exhaust plenum probably ignitedthe lint, which, in turn, ignited the polypropylene mooring line. The Safety Boardcontracted independent tests by Omega Point Laboratories, which determined that thepolypropylene line had an average heat of combustion of about 18,217 Btu per pound.Thus, the consumption of the polypropylene line on this deck could have yielded as muchas 150 million Btu of heat. Once ignited, the amount of heat released from polypropylenerope per pound is equivalent to that of a comparable amount of gasoline.The investigation showed that the fire consumed most of the fuel (polypropyleneline) on the mooring deck before firefighters were able to reach the deck and extinguish it.A pallet of nylon line survived the fire but was melted. Two lengths of polypropylene ropewere partially consumed and the others were completely destroyed.In the past, cruise ships typically were designed with mooring decks having eitherno overhead or an overhead and large permanent openings in the vessel’s side shell.Because the mooring deck area was open to the weather elements, the risk of fire was low;therefore, SOLAS did not require mooring decks to have fire protection. Modern cruiseship design, such as that of the Fantasy Class vessels, typically incorporates the mooringstation into the superstructure, often below accommodation and service spaces. Manymooring stations have openings that can be closed with hatches or covers. Despite this lossof openness, SOLAS still categorizes these mooring stations as open decks that are notrequired to have fire protection systems. Some newer ship designs also place ventilation