Fire defence on container ships: Recommendations of the DNV

What is - or at least should be - a technical design principle on grey ships and a daily routine in service operations, does not have to be just as consistently decisive on civilian-crewed, cost-oriented cargo and tanker ships: Fire safety in harbour and sea operations.

Fire hazard on container ships

In the civilian sector, it is less the handling of flammable and explosive substances inside the ship than the cargo in the freight or container hold. In the case of containers in particular, cargo knowledge and monitoring is rarely available at all times. This is why the topic of "Containership Fire Safety" is currently on the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) two-year agenda: In the SSE (Ship System & Equipment) subcommittee, amendments are to be made to SOLAS (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974) and the FSS Code (International Code for Fire Safety Systems), which will become mandatory in five years' time, i.e. on 1 January 2028.

Recommended solutions

In a position paper on "Reducing the risks of cargo fires on container ships", the DNV (Deutscher Nautischer Verein von 1868 e.V.) recommends the following solutions for newbuilds of these ships:

- the constructive installation of fire compartments below deck,

- dividing the upper deck into fire compartments, and

- the installation of fire alarm systems in all areas.

These proposals are only individual measures that need to be supplemented by other results and alternative solutions from ongoing studies on container ship fires.

"X-Press Pearl" off Colombo, May 2021 Photo: Sri Lanka Air Force

Objectives of the DNV

The primary aim of these recommendations is to contain the fire more quickly and effectively and thus reduce the use of extinguishing water, resulting in a lower environmental impact. According to the DNV's press release, the second objective of better protection of the ship and cargo is, of course, to protect the lives and health of seafarers more effectively.

Position paper

The full position paper can be downloaded from the DNV website at www.dnvev.de can be viewed and downloaded.

Lean sentence at the end

A handful of ship's safety officers from the frigates and supply vessels of Operational Flotilla 2 would have been at the watch boat coffee together with instructors from the Marine Damage Prevention Training Centre (EAZS M) came to a strikingly similar conclusion. This actually applies to every navy in the world that handles hazardous substances. The horrific losses suffered by the Russian Federation Navy in the Black Sea also confirm the importance of a functioning, trained and practised fire defence system as part of ship safety.