US Coast Guard released images of the Cutter Polar Star, that caught fire in the ship’s incinerator room about 650 miles north of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. After the attempts of four fire extinguishers failed, the fire crew was trying to extinguish fire for two hours. They managed to contain the fire damage inside the incinerator housing, while firefighting water used to cool exhaust pipe in the surrounding area damaged several electrical systems and insulation in the room.
The vessel is scheduled to proceed to repair operations, in its upcoming maintenance period.
Up to now, there have to been injuries reported, and the factor that caused the fire is unknown.
Vice Adm. Linda Fagan, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Pacific Area commented
It’s always a serious matter whenever a shipboard fire breaks out at sea, and it’s even more concerning when that ship is in one of the most remote places on Earth.
The Polar Star Cutter was commissioned in 1976 and has been operating over the expected 30 years.
This year marks the 63rd iteration of the annual operation, and the Polar Star crew departed their homeport of Seattle on November 27 2018 for their sixth deployment in as many years and travelled more than 11.200 miles to Antarctica.
When Polar Star arrived, it almost broke 17 miles of ice, six to ten feet thick, in order to open a channel through McMurdo Sound.
After completing its operation, the crew refuelled the vessel at McMurdo station, in the US’s main logistics hub in Antarctica.
USCG statement highlights that the fire was not the first engineering casualty that took place on Polar Star crew. While voyaging to Antarctica, one of the ship’s electrical systems began to smoke, causing damage to wiring in an electrical switchboard, and one of the ship’s two evaporators used to make drinkable water failed.
The electrical switchboard was repaired by the crew, and the ship’s evaporator was repaired after parts were received during a port call in Wellington, New Zealand.
Moreover, the vessel faced a leak from the shaft that drives the ship’s propeller, which halted icebreaking operations to send scuba divers into the water to repair the seal around the shaft.
Concluding, the polar star experienced ship-wide power outages while breaking ice. Crew members spent nine hours shutting down the ship’s power plant and rebooting the electrical system in order to remedy the outages.