A fire breaks out on board a ship transporting lithium-ion batteries
Authorities on Saturday continued to assess how to combat a fire that broke out two days ago aboard a cargo ship carrying nearly 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries that had been ordered to remain off the coast of Alaska .
The U.S. Coast Guard said there were no injuries to the 19 crew members aboard the ship, the Genius Star XI, and that it remained seaworthy.
The exact cause of the fire was unknown and is still under investigation. The Coast Guard could not immediately confirm who owns the ship or say what other cargo it is carrying. The ship’s departure and destination points were not available.
The fire broke out in cargo holds containing lithium-ion batteries highly flammable materialswere stored.
“These are very hot, very energetic fires,” said Richard Burke, professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the State University of New York Maritime College. Such fires can be long lasting and difficult to extinguish, he added.
The coast guard ordered the ship to remain two miles offshore of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and officials established a one-mile security zone around the ship for the duration of the response effort.
The fire started in two separate cargo holds, said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Salerno, a spokesman for the 17th Coast Guard District, covering 47,300 miles of coastline throughout Alaska and the Arctic.
Firefighting systems on the ship extinguished one of the fires. Crew members sealed off the other cargo hold and took temperature readings, which were normal as of Saturday, Commander Salerno said.
There were no signs of heat damage outside the cargo hold and authorities plan to monitor temperatures to see if they continue to drop.
A team of Navy firefighting experts who boarded the ship Thursday to assess its condition found no signs of structural deformation or blistering outside the compartment, the Coast Guard said.
The fact that the ship is still intact and afloat is good news for the environment, Professor Burke said.
These ships can carry hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo, such as silk blouses, beer, laptops and other commercial goods, which could potentially pollute the ocean if the ship were to sink.
“The ship also has fuel,” he noted. “If you lose the ship, the fuel also goes into the sea.”
While fires on cargo ships are rare, they are not unheard of, Professor Burke said.
In July, a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 cars caught fire off the coast of the Dutch island of Ameland in the North Sea, killing one crew member and injuring 22 others.
In 2022, a cargo ship carrying about 4,000 cars, including Porsches and Bentleys, caught fire 250 miles off the Azores and sank two weeks later.