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

Analysis 64 Marine Accident ReportA passive means for actuating the closure of fire dampers in certain areas isrequired by various interpretations of SOLAS, including Coast Guard regulations. 48 Themost commonly required passive closure mechanism is a weight- or spring-activatedfusible link that melts at a given temperature, allowing the fire damper to close. A fusiblelink can be designed to actuate at various temperatures, depending on the metal used in themechanism. It potentially offers a more fail-proof method of closure and, consequently, agreater margin of fire safety because an external power source is not needed to drive thedamper.The Safety Board concludes that if the main laundry’s fire dampers had beenequipped with a passive means of closure, such as a fusible link, the heat from the firewould have caused the dampers to shut sooner, which, in turn, might have prevented thespread of fire beyond the laundry area.While automatic fire dampers with passive actuating mechanisms are one way toeffectively stem the spread of smoke and fire through ventilation systems in high-riskareas, such dampers are not the only method of mitigating the danger. The Boardconsiders the individual cruise ship companies best qualified to analyze their vessels’design and engineering arrangements and to devise measures for dealing with theproblem. The Safety Board, therefore, believes that Carnival Cruise Lines should, for thevessels in its fleet, engineer, design, and implement system modifications to mitigate thespread of smoke and fire from the laundry rooms through the ventilation ducts to otherareas of the vessel. Further, cruise ship companies should, for existing vessels withventilation system arrangements similar to Carnival Cruise Lines’ Fantasy Class ships,install an automatic method or system to mitigate the spread of smoke and fire fromlaundry spaces through the ventilation ducts to other vessel areas.<strong>Fire</strong> Detection SystemDuring the Ecstasy fire, many smoke detectors activated within a few minutes. Thetime and sequence of the first five recorded smoke detector alarms are consistent withreports of where the fire started and how the fire and smoke spread through the ventilationsystem. The first smoke alarm indicated the main laundry room. The next alarms indicatedthe stern thruster room, the air conditioner room, and the portside steering gear room.According to the first officer, about 2 minutes after the first alarm, all the detector alarmson the fire panel appeared to activate at the same time, and, as a result, he reset the system.The activation of all alarms on the fire panel resulted from an electrical overload of thesystem. Despite the overload, the fire detection system provided an early warning of a fire,correctly identifying not only the fire zone but also the time and location of the firstdetectors. The Safety Board concludes that the fire detection system performed properlyby providing an early indicator of a fire.48 NVIC No. 09-97.