Ship "Fremantle Highway" on fire in the North Sea

[Catfish]

Carrying electric vehicles

[Skybird]

Some Nordic ferry lines have banned ecars.
I store my bike batteries in vacuumized 7.52 ammo boxes and outside my flat - and away from my stored petroleum and gas cartridges. The risk is low, but real, and higher than with other stuff of this kind.
I also never charge batteries in my absence or over night.

[Dargo]

The fire on the freighter, the Fremantle Highway north of Ameland is still not extinguished. According to the Coast Guard, extinguishing and salvaging it "could take days or even weeks". There are still fires and a lot of smoke, the Coast Guard says. As a result, it is not possible to allow salvagers to board the ship to tow it away.

A fire started on the ship, with 3,000 cars on board, early this night. The fire spread quickly, and the 23-member crew had to be disembarked as soon as possible. One crew member was killed. He died on board KNRM's lifeboat. The remaining 22 crew members were injured. They are being treated for breathing problems, burns and broken bones. None of them are in mortal danger. The entire crew is from India.

A Coast Guard spokesman said earlier today that the fire is believed to have started in one of the 25 electric cars on board. Later in the evening, the Coast Guard said nothing is yet known about the cause. "There is no extinguishing on the ship itself or from the water on top of the ship," said Edwin Granneman of the Coast Guard. "We didn't do that on purpose. The moment you all spray water into the ship, it can affect its stability. The ship could then start tilting." Therefore, water is only sprayed against the side to cool the ship. For the rest, it remains to be seen how the fire develops and how long it will take for it to be safely salvaged.

There is a no-fly zone above the area where the burning ship is, says Air Traffic Control the Netherlands (LVNL). This is a temporary ban to give emergency services space. According to the coast guard, the no-fly zone has nothing to do with hazardous substances that may be released.

There are now 3 scenarios:

1. The ship could sink. Every effort is being made to prevent that and, for now, the ship is stable.
2. Another option is to tow the ship away from its current position between the two fairways above Ameland. "In order to establish a proper towing connection, people would actually have to board the ship. It remains to be seen whether that is possible under the current conditions."
3. Another option is to let the ship burn out completely and then salvage it. So that could take weeks.

According to the Japanese owner of the ship, the company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, it is likely that the fire originated from electric cars. "But we are not entirely sure of the cause, for that we are waiting for the investigation," a spokesman said. He does not know which car brands were being carried on the ship. Their first objective now is to put out the fire, the spokesman said. "Once that is done, we will try to get permission to get the ship into a port." After that, an investigation into the cause of the fire will start immediately. The Department of Public Works will oversee the salvage, but ultimately that is the responsibility of the shipowner himself. Shoei Kisen Kaisha is also the owner of the Ever Given, the cargo ship that blocked the Suez Canal for six days in 2021.

[Skybird]

I just red a member of some disaster command in charge of the operation said a sinking of the ship now is a likely scenario.

[Dargo]

Timeline of the fire on the Fremantle Highway:

• 23:45: Vessel Fremantle Highway reports to the Coast Guard that there is a fire on board. The vessel is currently sailing 27 kilometres north of Ameland.
• 00.30: The skipper of the KNRM rescue ship from Ameland is alerted. "We were all asleep and were paged out of our beds".
• 03.49: Shipping company Noordgat reports that their ship Hurricane is working with KNRM to rescue the crew of the burning vessel. Tug Hunter is on its way.
• 04:30: The Coast Guard reports that all 23 crew members have been removed from the burning vessel.
• 06:51: The Coast Guard reports that those on board have been taken to Lauwersoog and Eelde airport. There they have been taken care of by ambulance personnel. It is also reported that there is one fatality.
• 09.00: The salvage vessel Hunter of shipping company Noordgat has an emergency connection to the ship, keeping the vessel in a controlled position.
• 09.49: Rijkswaterstaat is consulting with the Coastguard and salvage companies, among others, on what to do with the ship if it needs to be salvaged.
• 11.26: The Coast Guard reports that the situation is unchanged. There is still a lot of smoke. Several scenarios are being worked out.
• 13.10: Rijkswaterstaat reports that the ship's Japanese shipping company has ordered a salvage company to salvage the Fremantle Highway as soon as possible. Rijkswaterstaat has a vessel on site monitoring.
• 16:10: A temporary no-fly zone is in place over the burning freighter at the request of the Coast Guard. Only emergency agencies are allowed to enter the area.
• 17:45: It is still unclear when people will be able to board to extinguish the fire. The ship is currently being cooled with seawater, but to really put out the fire, firefighters need to board. This is too dangerous so far.

KNRM=Royal Dutch Rescue Society
Rijkswaterstaat =Department of Waterways and Public Works

Originally Posted by Skybird

I just red a member of some disaster command in charge of the operation said a sinking of the ship now is a likely scenario.

That would be a disaster for the waddengebied (tidal flats), I haven't heard anything about it all that the ship is slightly listing.

More environmental danger comes from the fuels and lubricating oil in the engines and tanks of the thousands of fossil cars on board (though it is questionable how much of that remains after possibly days of fire). And from the fuel oil the ship sails on. The Coast Guard reckons the ship will sink, leading to "enormous damage, including to the environment", according to a spokesman. Rijkswaterstaat sent an oil spill response vessel on Wednesday to minimise the impact of any oil spill.

The rules for transporting electric cars at sea should be tightened. That is what the Royal Association of Dutch Shipowners (KVNR) says in response to the fire on the car transporter Fremantle Highway north of Ameland. On board are some three thousand cars, some of which are electrically powered. The ship has been on fire since midnight, possibly due to an electric car. Once such a car catches fire, it is very difficult to put it out. "It's a headache," says KVNR chairman Jan Valkier. "We had a similar accident last year in the middle of the ocean, where a ship completely burned out and sank."

The UN International Maritime Organisation is currently working on tightened regulations for electric cars at sea, but it is not clear when they will come. "Hurry up with those regulations to prevent these kinds of accidents in the future," is Valkier's appeal. The KVNR would like rules on how many electric cars are allowed on board a ship. "And if a fire does occur, what do you do on board a ship? These are all things that need to be examined and tightened up." But why is putting out electric cars so difficult? Briefly, the battery is very well protected from collisions and contact with water, making it difficult to reach it with extinguishing water. Another problem: once a battery has burned out, the fire can re-ignite. Cooling battery cells from the outside is very difficult, says Yvonne Stassen, spokesperson at the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety. "The only way to prevent the battery from reheating is to immerse the battery pack in water for a long time.

The Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIVP) wrote a report on fighting incidents involving electric cars on ships. Among other things, it states that ship personnel and firefighters must be able to act with lightning speed in such fires. "In addition, they must have specialist skills and tools." If that is not there and the fire is already advanced, the only thing left is complete evacuation of the ship. The latter happened at the Fremantle Highway. Of the 23 crew members, 22 were brought to safety; one crew member died. Meanwhile, it is clear that extinguishing the ship could take days or even weeks. "You have to let the electric cars burn out, which can take a long time," says fire safety professor Ruud van Herpen (TU Eindhoven). So sometimes an electric car is put in an immersion tank with water for weeks. So the other option is to let the battery burn out. "You cannot cut off the fire from oxygen, because a fire in a battery can burn out without oxygen," he says.

Therefore, speed is very important when extinguishing an electric car. "With a rapid report, it is still possible to make a deployment to extinguish the fire. Once the incident has spread and escalated, there are virtually no repressive options left on the open sea," says the NIVP. Prevention is therefore important, but also a difficult task, says Van Herpen. "Reducing the risk to 0 percent does not exist. A normal car also starts a fire in a car park because it overheats." There are, however, options to reduce the fire risk in an electric car. For example, by not charging the battery before transport and keeping it empty. Moreover, there are gains to be made when distributing electric cars on a cargo ship, says the fire safety expert. "It is not wise to put all the cars next to each other, as they will ignite each other. Making smaller compartments helps to fight the fire faster and save time to tow a ship to a port."

[mapuc]

Thank you Dargo for provide us with information about this ship fire near the Netherland.

Markus

[Oubaas]

Pollution from fuel oil, petroleum, and any cow farts that may have been onboard.

Clearly we should convert to electric ships no later than 2030 to save the planet, because it's just so gosh darn nice to live in this world.

You should all live on a diet of rabbit food so you can spend an extra ten years here. Just think of the wonders to come. You ain't seen nothin' yet! And you'll miss it all if you eat steak, or anything else that tastes good.

Have a bowl of sliced radishes and some kale instead. And tofu. Don't forget the tofu.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I just red a member of some disaster command in charge of the operation said a sinking of the ship now is a likely scenario.

That would be a serious disaster in such shallow waters.

[Dargo]

Emergency services have switched to metered cooling of the outside of the freighter Fremantle Highway near the Wadden Islands. Earlier, cooling was constant. "Unnecessary water on board must be prevented. This endangers the stability of the ship," writes the Coast Guard. Whether the ship will be cooled is determined on a moment-by-moment basis. "The direction lies with the salvage team," says a Coast Guard spokesperson. "There are salvagers present who determine per moment whether cooling is done. The stability of the ship is decisive." Heat cameras monitor the ship's temperature. "A coastguard aircraft takes thermal images. With that, we take temperature measurements."

According to the German Environment Ministry, there are 1,600 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel on board the ship that ran into trouble yesterday. A spokesman for the Royal Dutch Rescue Society (KNRM) informs that crew members jumped from about 25 to 30 metres into the water from the ship yesterday. Meanwhile, the fire is raging on and smoke is still coming out of the ship, making it unsafe to board. The ship is now some 16 kilometres north of Terschelling as it drifts westwards due to the wind and currents. The vessel is being kept out of the shipping lanes with the help of a tug, allowing shipping traffic to pass at a safe distance. The vehicle is no longer completely level in the water, according to Rijkswaterstaat (Department of Waterways and Public Works).

Japanese shipping company K Line told German news agency DPA this morning that the burning cargo ship had about a thousand more cars on board than previously reported. It is 3783 cars instead of 2857 cars, according to the shipping company. However, the Coast Guard is still assuming 2857 cars. "That is the information we have received," he said. If it does turn out to be 3783, it won't make a big difference to the operation, according to the Coast Guard. "It's a complex situation anyway, whether it's about 2,800 or 3,800 cars." It may still take days to extinguish the fire, a Coast Guard spokesman said this morning on NOS Radio 1 News. To gather information, the Coast Guard is taking images from a plane. In addition, a salvage team is monitoring the situation from the tug. If fuel starts leaking from the ship, it will spread northwards and not towards the Wadden Islands, outgoing minister Harbers (Infrastructure and Water Management) wrote in a letter to the Lower House this morning. This is due to "the current wind and wave direction foreseen for the coming days". Rijkswaterstaat is in the area with an oil spill response vessel to intervene immediately as soon as it does.

The big fear is that the ship will capsize and sink. That could mean some of the cargo moving towards the Wadden Islands. "It is a world heritage site and that could be damaged if very strange, toxic products were to end up there," Ameland mayor Stoel said yesterday. The mayor again stressed the importance of paying attention to the safety of this kind of shipping at the Wadden area. "We have previously expressed concern about the route being sailed," he said. There is a northern and a southern route. Stoel and the other Wadden mayors would prefer to see the southern route disappear. "The further away from the Wadden Islands, the fewer the risks and the more time to intervene if something goes wrong."

[Rockstar]

After catching fire, it took two weeks for the Felicity Ace to sink.

[Skybird]

Media report this morning the ship had loaded not 25 ecars - but 500.

[Jimbuna]

Sources vary but mine are saying approx. 3000 of which 25 are electric.

[Skybird]

That's what they initially thought. But there is the possibility that it are not 3000 but 3800 cars, and 500 of these e-cars.
Two or three German newspapers brought this this morning. They refer to Dutch ANP news agency. ANP got it from the company, KLine, which says three thousand seven hundred something cars.



https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/arti...s-geladen.html

[Jimbuna]

Whatever the actual figures are, it will all come out in the wash (no pun intended)

[Aktungbby]

...as moderator-in-chief, U should "wash out" what you post.(play-on-words intended)