Fire prevention – before the fire starts
Strict rules concerning firefighting and smoke detection on ships are in place, however, there are no rules at all on the detection of leaking gas or oil mist.
The Risk of Fire and Explosion in Engine Rooms
Every year, several hundreds of fires aboard merchant ships are registered: The majority occur in the engine rooms from leaking fuel oil and hydrocarbons.
Some fires ultimately result in loss of lives, while others cause high financial impact for repairs and losses related to the fire itself, but also logistical issues and costs deriving from the incident. With increased ship traffic, especially in sensitive geographical areas, fires pose a particular risk to passengers and crews and the surrounding environmental landscape. The engine room constitutes a considerable source of risk, as this is where fuel under pressure meets hot surfaces causing it to unintended ignite leaking gas or oil mist vapors.
Fires do occur
But did you know that technology now makes it possible to prevent most of them?
According to Norske Veritas 2/3 of the fires on board ships, starts in the engine room and the majority come from oil leaks.
This started the founders of DASPOS to research ways to detect oil leaks before it becomes real fire-hazard.
Why invest in non-mandatory safety precautions?
Co-founder of DASPOS Lars Gerner Lund explains: “First of all safety for your passengers and crew can not be overrated. A fire at sea is the worst catastrophe you can experience, as you have nowhere to run and can’t expect help from others.
That said, you will have several types of costs to consider for example loss of revenue, lack of income during layup or docking, costs deriving from logistic issues, service and repair costs, and image costs.
So many reasons, humane and economic, speak in favor of investing in this type of fire prevention.”
But most ships have leakage surveillance systems.
“Yes, that is right,” says Lars Gerner Lund, “however, traditional leakage surveillance concepts do not cover the open areas in the engine room, which is the area, where gas and oil leaks can encounter hot surfaces. Further, they are insufficient regarding challenges such as overflow risk, risk of clogged pipes, and creative workarounds to avoid established alarm systems.
What kind of ships have you had as first-movers?
“We have seen that some of the cruise ships and passenger ferries have moved quickly. But in general, we are experiencing serious shipowners, who care about their crew, their customers, and the environment, are demonstrating an increasing interest in proactively safeguarding their ships.” Says Lars Gerner Lund.
Where are you going from here?
“We are promoting the philosophy of proactively safeguarding people, assets, and revenue. We see sales increasing, at the same rate as knowledge of our service is spreading.
At the same time, we are working closely together with the Danish Maritime Authority, and Danish Shipping to make preventive surveillance systems like ours mandatory for specific ship types starting with ships with people/passengers onboard or ships that are sailing in remote areas. However, this is on the long haul, and in the meantime, we are doing our utmost to have as many ships as possible secured, because it is the right thing to do.” Says Lars Gerner and ends with a quote from the CTO, Mærsk Supply Service
“We all know about how to fight a fire - we just don’t want it to ignite in the first place”
