Fire alarm aboard the Kodiak Enterprise never sent a warning

The National Transportation Safety Board has released its report on the fire aboard the factory trawler Kodiak Enterprise, which was ruled a total loss after it caught fire at the Tacoma pier last year.

In the early morning hours of April 8, 2023, a fire broke out in the dry storage room of the fishing vessel Kodiak Enterprise. The ship lay in port for regular shipyard time, including cutting and welding of wasted hull and bulkhead sections. Four crew members from the technical department remained on board.

On April 7, repair contractors were on board to perform hot work on the pilot house, hold deck, 03 deck, and various vent pipe valves. The loading hatch of the dry storage facility on level 03 was opened so that workers could lay a forced ventilation hose into the interior.

They finished and disembarked around 3:30 p.m. After they left, the deputy chief engineer inspected the work areas and everything appeared to be in order. All four crew members were in bed at about 10 p.m. and there were no signs of trouble until 2:15 a.m., when the electrician woke up and headed to the airport.

At 03:00 a.m., a deckhand from another nearby vessel was on deck and spotted smoke coming from the deck hatch on the Kodiak Enterprise’s foredeck. He went down the pier to investigate and saw that the smoke was getting thicker; He later told investigators that it smelled like burning wood. At 3:10 a.m., he ran to tell the facility’s security guard.

The security guard called 911 at 3:19 a.m., nearly 20 minutes after the first signs of trouble were spotted. He also called the port engineer, who then called the Kodiak Enterprise’s chief engineer to wake him up and tell him that a fire had broken out aboard the ship. This was the first notification the onboard crew received that something was wrong. The engineer woke up the other two crew members who were still on board and they went searching. Smoke rose from the galley aisle. All three were evacuated immediately.

The first fire-fighting team arrived on site at 03:27 a.m. Local firefighters entered deck level 01 and began extinguishing the flames in the galley; They noticed that the 02nd deck level above them was already in flames.

Trident called the salvor Resolve Marine, which has a base in Tacoma. Resolve’s crew began setting up their response command post at 06:15 a.m. and joined the effort.

That evening, emergency crews decided to change their approach and switch to perimeter cooling in hopes of slowing the spread of the fire. Meanwhile, another response team planned to remove hazardous fluids and the ship’s refrigerant supply (Freon). The fire burned through the ship over the next six days and was finally extinguished on April 14. The ship was damaged by smoke and heat throughout and was declared a total loss.

A federal fire investigator determined the fire’s origin was likely in the dry storage room, which was filled with wooden shelves and cardboard boxes containing supplies. The report concluded that the cause of the fire was an “unknown power outage” in that compartment that was unrelated to hot work.

NTSB determined that the crew and management ashore never received notification from the ship’s automatic fire detection system. The system was designed to send an alert via SMS or email when it was set to operate in port. However, the port engineer only found out about the accident when the security officer called. Likewise, the crew never heard a fire alarm – it was not designed to alarm in accommodation spaces – and could have potentially been impaired by smoke inhalation or killed had they not been awakened by personnel on shore. The lack of an alarm delayed the firefighting response, allowing the fire to swell for at least 19 minutes longer as visible smoke emerged from the hatch.

The wirelessly connected detector system was severely damaged in the fire, so it was not possible to determine why it did not work as planned.

“If repair work is carried out on the ship that could trigger false alarms, such as: “For example, during hot work operations, crew members should check the fire detection and alarm system to ensure it is operational upon completion of the work,” NTSB warned. “In addition, crew members living on board or residing on board a ship while it is in port should be included in the system’s designated contacts for immediate notification.”