200345 Realistic Fire Drills

Realistic Fire Drills
Report No. 200345

Our Crew and Officers have a very good level of training, motivation and understanding of the ISM Code and the importance of training. However, we all make mistakes despite regular drills. Perhaps the reason is regularly announcing practice drills in advance.

Saturday afternoon routine at sea is to have a drill. It is almost a religious thing to be ready for the alarm to ring at 1530. Everybody goes to their stations wearing appropriate clothing and lifejackets. The fire drill is carried out, the "fire" is extinguished or the "oil" is contained and then everybody will attend the boat drill with the check list of duties, starting the boat's engine and some brief explanation on boat's equipment and launching carried out.

One Saturday something different happened. After the drill was completed the crew were dismissed. At around 17:30 the officers and crew started showing up for dinner with all our officers wearing their uniforms and our crew dressed in comfortable clothes ready to dine when the Fire Alarm started ringing. There were some additional riding squad on overtime who were still working up forward and who did not hear the alarm.

The Engineers left the messroom and, by just glancing at the fire alarm panel in the Cargo Control Room, they "knew" that the "fire" was in the incinerator area. All of them went to that area while the Chief Officer (by this time wearing Bermuda shorts and shirt with epaulettes) was waiting for the crew to muster as required on the main deck (they arrived quite quickly). The bridge team mustered and found the Third Officer (on meal relief for the C/O) talking on the phone with the C/E who was complaining that the alarm bell was still ringing. The 3/O, young but proud and confident replied that, unless the alarm was declared as false, he was not going to do that. After a few more moments the fire alarm was declared false. The reason the alarm had activated was some smoke emitting from the incinerator. The Engine Squad finally mustered on the Main Deck awaiting further instructions. The crew forward continued their work without being disturbed.

What went wrong?

1. The alleyway was crowded at the commencement of dinner time and hindered the officers and ratings going to the muster stations.
2. The Engineers were much too willing to hasten to the zone of a suspected fire just by looking at the alarm panel located in the CCR.
3. The people working forward were never aware of the situation. Even though means of communication existed, nobody had advised them that the fire alarm had been raised.
4. There was no debriefing after the incident as is normally done with a practice drill to explain to the crew what went wrong.
5. The fact that it could have been a real emergency and not a planned and announced practice drill created a different reaction by several crew members than in normal training drills.
6. Wives onboard did not muster (as they just practised earlier on the same afternoon), remaining in the mess room awaiting for their husbands to return.

Lessons Learnt:

• Drills should be as close to reality as possible, even when planned and announced in advance.
• Changing clothes in readiness for the drill helps to show which clothing is suitable for tackling an emergency but the scenario can be different when a real emergency occurs.
• After discussion with the Engineers, it was agreed that their going to the fire scene prior to mustering was not a correct reaction, even though, in this incident their action was enough to end the emergency situation.
• The reaction of the Third Officer in not stopping the alarm bells despite the annoying ringing and an order from the C/E was commendable.
• We need to train our officers and crew how to react correctly in emergencies. Just doing that, we will be able to respond in a better way to a real emergency.