A recent incident reported by IMCA highlights that caution is required in the use of personal electronic items – particularly those with Lithium batteries – in vessel cabins as inappropriate management of these entails serious risk for fires.
The incident occurred on board a vessel which almost escalated into a serious accommodation fire. Namely, a crew member finished his work for the day and returned to his cabin. He plugged his mobile phone into an extension cable to charge; also plugged into the extension cable was a fan heater. The crew member emerged from his bathroom to find his cabin filled with smoke and a fire on the desk; both the cabin telephone and extension cable were burning. The crew member attempted to extinguish the fire by hitting it with a pillow, at this point the cabin telephone exploded and fragments fell onto the mattress, starting a second fire. Once the electricity had been isolated, the fire was extinguished with fire hoses before it could escalate further.
Initial reports suggested that the cabin telephone had caught fire independently of any other electronics, until reconstruction of the setup was requested and revealed the extension cable and fan heater. This seriously hampered the investigation process.
IMCA notes that the investigation shed light to the following causes:
- Electrical equipment was not used properly
- There was poor housekeeping
- The vessel air conditioning and heating equipment were not being used for controlling cabin temperature
- The initial reaction of the crew member to attempt to smother the fire with a pillow caused the fire to spread and become more serious
Other factors identified were as follows:
- Inadequate procedures:
- no control procedure or testing requirement was in place for personal electronic equipment brought onboard
- no requirement for warning signs/information within cabins
- insufficient information in company training material with regard to the dangers of overheating electronic devices and good housekeeping
- high powered electrical fan heaters were introduced to cabins without a management of change (MoC) process or risk assessment
- heaters and fans were bought locally by vessel crew from different sources with no quality control check in place;
- Inadequate leadership:
- when issues with vessel’s air conditioning and heating systems affecting cabin temperatures were previously reported, onboard management introduced additional equipment rather than solving the issues.
In this regard, IMCA highlights the following lessons learned:
- Add requirement for PAT testing to vessel SMS and planned maintenance system (PMS);
- Implement more appropriate control of personal electronic equipment on board;
- Investigate and repair vessel air conditioning to ensure that accommodation temperature control using fixed vessel equipment is achievable;
- Post appropriate warning signs by sockets in cabins;
- Retraining and refamiliarization of crew on fire prevention on electrical equipment, raising the alarm and electrical safety in general.
