Sailors train hard to be able to isolate and extinguish shipboard blazes, but as manning numbers head downward, automated systems and passive technologies such as intumescent paint become more critical.
Fire at sea is one of the most dangerous and hazardous situations a ship's crew can face. Sailors train, train, and then train some more to ensure they can isolate and then extinguish virtually any blaze, whether resulting from a peacetime accident or combat damage. Lives are at stake, as can be the ship's mission and the ship herself.
During the 1982 Falklands conflict, HMS Sheffield, struck by two Exocet missiles, filled with dense and toxic smoke that frustrated damage-control teams attempting to quench the conflagration, and the ship eventually was lost. The fate of the USS Stark (FFG31) was uncertain for several hours after she was hit by two Iraqi Exocets in May 1987. Only the most heroic measures saved the ship, but 37 sailors died from fire and smoke inhalation. The crew of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) put their lives on the line to control fire and contain damage when their ship was nearly broken in half after detonating a mine.
The threat of devastating fire is not limited to surface combatants. At least three U.S. aircraft carriers have been racked by explosions and fires—the Oriskany (CVA-34), Forrestal (CVA59), and Enterprise (CVNA-65)—since the end of World War II. The Forrestal's fate hung in the balance in the late morning of 29 July 1967, when a Zuni rocket, accidentally launched from an F-4B Phantom II, struck a drop-tank mounted beneath an A-4 Skyhawk. Flames from exploding bombs, fuel tanks, and fuel lines rapidly engulfed the after end of the ship. Berthing spaces immediately below the flight deck soon were death traps for 50 men; the fire spread too quickly to get them out. Only after more than 12 hours were the fires contained, although some continued to bum for another three days. The ultimate toll was terrible: 134 dead and 60 men seriously injured, 21 aircraft destroyed and 41 others damaged. It took more than seven months and some $72 million to bring the carrier back on line.
The danger of fire at sea has been dramatically underscored in the commercial shipping world as well. In the past decade, numerous cruise ships, ferries, and other vessels have fallen victim to fires, often with tragic consequences. The North American cruise ship industry alone has reported 31 fires on ships since 1992, half of them in the past two years. Despite the best efforts of owners, operators, and crews, the sea is unforgiving, and mariners—like the ill-fated crews and passengers of the fire-struck MV Nieuw Amsterdam in May 2000, MV Ecstasy off Miami in 1998, or MV Prisendam in the Gulf of Alaska in 1980—will find themselves in extremis when fire strikes. According to Coast Guard data, about 3,500 ships (in addition to private boats) are involved in accidents each year, 80% the result of human error, and many are damaged severely or lost from fire. Director of the National Transportation Safety Board's Office of Maritime Safety Marjorie Murtagh notes that since 1979 the board has investigated 16 cruise ship fires that resulted in eight deaths, 210 injuries, and more than $175 million in property damage.
The problem looks to get worse, particularly in the cruise ship industry, as ever-larger ships put to sea—some with more than 6,000 passengers and crew—and head toward ever-more remote areas. "We are faced with the prospect of floating cities out there," Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR), ranking minority member of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, underscored, "that are disasters waiting to happen."
It is not that the need for effective fire-control techniques and fire-retardant materials has gone unnoticed. In 1992, two years after 152 people died from a fire on board the MV Scandinavian Star, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) put in place more rigorous fire-safety standards under the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention. Among other safety measures, its codes require ships to install structural fire-protection systems on bulkheads and overhead spaces. Depending on location, the system must meet 15-, 30-, or 60-minute protection against fire and heat, with major ship fire-zone boundaries requiring the longest protection. In December 1996, IMO adopted SOLAS amendments, mandatory from 1 July 1998, for a new International Code for the Applications of Fire Test Procedures. The new regulations require nearly all exposed and concealed surfaces to have low flame-spread characteristics and all paints to be incapable of producing excessive quantities of smoke and toxic materials.
One critical objective is to protect against "flashover." Given the right conditions, a small fire quickly can ignite the paint or wall covering of an adjacent bulkhead, and within a few more minutes, the burning paint or covering can add sufficient heat to cause a fire to erupt suddenly—to flashover—and engulf an entire adjacent space. Searing heat levels can contribute to additional flashover in nearby compartments and passageways, creating a chain reaction and rapid fire spread that, if unchecked, can be catastrophic. Equally disastrous and quick to spread are lethal levels of smoke and toxic products that are released when these coverings or coatings burn. The Sheffield's damage-control teams, for example, were confronted with highly toxic and very dense smoke from burning bulkhead coatings and could not contain the fires, which ultimately spread throughout the ship.
Calling for all passenger ships to seal major passageways from flammable materials and to install fire- and smoke-- detection systems and remotely controlled fire doors, the IMO/SOLAS rules can be phased in during a 16-year period. Several ship owners and operators have cited vessel age and economics as rationales for procrastination, and some observers doubt all steps will be taken—sometimes ships are simply taken out of service if operators no longer can delay compliance. In the meantime, they operate unprotected. Also, there remain uncertainties about how well the rules are enforced and safety inspections are carried out, particularly against foreign-flagged or -operated vessels.
Ironically, U.S. Navy warships do not have to meet these more-stringent SOLAS requirements. That said, the Navy's fire-fighting challenge at sea—as an element of overall damage control—will get more intense as manning is reduced. The goal for the Zumwalt-class (DD-21) land-attack destroyer, for example, is a crew of no more than 95 people. "We are investigating all opportunities for the optimal-manning of the ship," a Navy spokesman noted, "and damage-control and fire-fighting are among our toughest challenges. So we and the two industry teams are studying a variety of passive and active technologies, automated systems, and innovative procedures to enable us to `fight hurt' and carry out our mission."
One such passive technology that is being considered for DD-21 and other surface ships and submarines is a fire-- retardant intumescent paint or coating that can isolate the fire and reduce the possibility of flashover for a period of time to enable other automated systems or a damage-control party to extinguish the blaze. In general, an intumescent is a film coating that expands at a set activation temperature (e.g., 350 deg F) to reduce both flame spreading and heat transmission. According to industry and government sources, high-performance intumescent fire-retardant coatings can provide significant benefits at much-reduced costs compared to traditional methods.
In tests at the Carderock Division of the Navy Surface Warfare Center in 1999, an advanced intumescent coating was shown to be significantly superior to controls for maximum optical density of smoke and much better than controls for reducing flame spreading. The Carderock tests concluded that the coating showed no signs of ignition, flaming, sparking, or burning drops. In addition, other Navy reviews have shown that the product presents no health hazards as long as standard application precautions are taken.
Other tests have confirmed that a single application of such a high-performance intumescent covering—which can be applied over bare metal, most existing paints, and other coverings—can be more effective than traditional fire-insulation products. Both Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding are examining its application in new-construction ships, as internal corporate assessments indicate it is more economical and more effective than traditional passive fire-retardant systems and has a significant weight advantage compared to a blanket-type insulation. Experiments also have indicated that it will be easy to maintain and highly resistant to aging and high humidity.
Warship requirements call for damage-control bulkheads to be spaced throughout the ship to serve as barriers to fire and flooding. In a destroyer-size ship, there may be as many as five such bulkheads—each specially fitted with fire-retardant insulation—that mark fallback positions for fire-fighting teams to isolate the rest of the ship from a fire. Today's high-performance intumescent paint technologies permit virtually any bulkhead to serve as a fire zone, thus increasing the chances for survival and enhancing a warship's ability to "fight hurt."
Clearly, fire-fighting capability is a factor in readiness, as any crew member taken from his or her battle station to fight a fire degrades a warship's overall readiness to carry out her missions. The service will be missing the boat if the promise of high-performance intumescent paints and coatings is not embraced for today's fleet and the Navy-after-Next. The lessons of Sheffield, Forrestal, and Prisendam should not be forgotten.
Dr. Truver is vice president, national security studies, Center for Security Strategies and Operations, Anteon Corporation, and has written extensively on naval and maritime subjects. He is the author of the "U.S. Navy in Review" and "Tomorrow's Fleet" annual columns in Proceedings among other articles focusing on strategy, policy, technology, and operations. Amy Palmer of the Center for Security Strategies and Operations assisted in the research for this article.