The huge, Norwegian-flagged vessel, loaded with hundreds of used, broken-down cars and other vehicles, was preparing to leave port when the chief mate saw the smoke pouring from a ventilation duct.
The fire rapidly grew in intensity, beating back repeated efforts by the crew to contain it. The black smoke in one stairwell would become so thick that the chief engineer thought the lights were out and as firefighters finally arrived on the scene, an explosion shook the ship with a loud roar likened to the blast of a jet engine.
It took eight days to extinguish the blaze. But by the time it was over the ship and its cargo, valued at $40 million, was declared a total loss.
Three years before a fire claimed two firefighters as it raced through the Grande Costa d’Avorio in Port Newark earlier this month, a strikingly similar fire in Jacksonville, Fla., spread unchecked within another car-carrying ship — the Höegh Xiamen — which had in fact been chartered by Grimaldi Deep Sea, the same Italian company that operated the Grande Costa.
The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that an electrical fault from an improperly disconnected battery in one of the vehicles loaded aboard the Höegh Xiamen led to the explosion and blaze that injured nine firefighters in June 2020.
The U.S. Coast Guard and the NTSB have yet to determine a cause for the Port Newark fire, which was finally extinguished on Tuesday, six days after it began. The ongoing investigation is expected to continue for well over a year. Grimaldi, through a spokesman, said in a statement it was “working with the Coast Guard, as well as salvage and other experts,” on a full investigation which will determine the cause.
But experts, including some close to the response efforts in Newark, say the events surrounding the Höegh Xiamen offer a possible roadmap as to what may have happened aboard the Grande Costa.
The two ships — though not identical, crewed by different companies and built by different shipyards — were both known as “RO/ROs,” or roll on/roll off car-carrying freighters. Essentially huge sea-going parking garages, the vessels operate like ferries that carry wheeled cargo such as cars, motorcycles, forklifts, trucks, and buses. Vehicles are driven or towed up ramps within the ships and then lashed and secured to the decks for transport.
Such ships, however, can be vulnerable to fire.
“RO/ROs are extremely dangerous, due to the large open areas and nature of the cargo,” said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime history expert and professor at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C.
Car fires aboard ships are typically contained at sea by suppression systems that flood compartments with carbon dioxide to smother the flames. However, that only works if the deck is sealed and ventilation is secure, Mercogliano explained. In Newark and Jacksonville, both ships they were in the process of loading. In the case of the Höegh Xiamen, the vessel’s fire detection systems had been deactivated during that loading, investigators later found.
“In many ways, there is a thin margin to suppress any fire on a ship, no matter the type, until it gets away,” he said.
At least five other RO/RO ships have had accidents since 2015, including a 2019 fire aboard Grimaldi’s Grande Europa, according to federal data.
A rush of thick smoke
The Höegh Xiamen was a 10-year-old vehicle carrier built in China, operated by a Norwegian company and chartered by Grimaldi Deep Sea to transport used vehicles to West Africa, according to the NTSB report on the Jacksonville ship fire.
The 600-foot ship was docked at the Horizon Terminal on Blount Island in the Port of Jacksonville with a crew of 21 on the afternoon of June 4, 2020, when its crew had just finished the loading of cars from the dock. They were preparing for a 5 p.m. departure, en route to Baltimore to load the last of its transatlantic cargo, when the fire broke out while they struggled to stow the stern ramp that serves as the entrance for vehicles being brought on board.
Investigators said the ship’s chief mate was the first to notice smoke coming from the housing around a cargo deck ventilation exhaust stack on the top deck. He alerted the captain and the fire detection system was reactivated, which immediately set off the ship’s alarms.
“When the chief engineer got to deck 8 in the stairwell, he observed heavy smoke. He believed that the lights were out because it was so dark, but when he asked the chief mate to turn on the lights, the chief mate replied that the lights were already on,” the NTSB report noted. “From the stairwell, he opened the door to deck 8 and saw a vehicle on fire at the aft end of deck 8 and ‘strong’ smoke, which forced him to evacuate.”
Crew firefighting teams attempted to enter deck 8 to fight the fire. But according to the chief engineer, they were met by a rush of thick smoke that poured out of the door, preventing them from entering. With the arrival of Jacksonville firefighters, the crew suggested that the fire-extinguishing carbon dioxide system be triggered into decks 7 and 8, where they believed the fire to be concentrated. It had little effect.
The NTSB said firefighters were finally able to enter the compartment and encountered two smoldering vehicles. While they stretched hoses from their own trucks to begin fighting the fire, the heat seemed to increase substantially despite cooling the cars.
According to a federal lawsuit filed by the firefighters who were injured, the interior soon turned hellish.
“The deck was full of the smoke; the temperatures reaching in excess of 1,000 degrees. Car alarms were sounding and headlights flashing from the incinerating cars as the fire and heat spread inside the dark, smoky, closed, and cramped cargo hold decks,” wrote attorneys for the the men.
Not long afterward, an explosion of superheated air within one ventilation shaft shot a tall column of smoke from the stern on the top deck, sending debris flying as firefighters reported possible multiple explosions of varying magnitude. Nine firefighters who were working in the stairwell or who had been staged on deck 5 were burned, five of them seriously.
The fire continued to burn for 8 days, destroying the interior of cargo decks 7 through 11 and deck 12, including the ship’s accommodations. The ship was later scrapped.
In its findings, the NTSB determined that the probable cause of the fire was the “ineffective oversight” of longshoremen by Grimaldi as well as the stevedoring company that had loaded the vehicles aboard the Höegh Xiamen, and the failure to follow Grimaldi’s own vehicle battery securement procedures. It said that resulted in an electrical fault from an improperly disconnected battery in a used vehicle on cargo deck 8.
Contributing factors included a delay in the detection of the fire blamed on the crew not immediately reactivating the vessel’s fire detection system after the completion of loading, according to the NTSB.
At the same time, the shoreside fire department’s response to the accident site was delayed as well because the captain of the Höegh Xiamen did not have contact information for search and rescue authorities and did not know how to report a fire to local authorities — including who to call, what number to dial, or which frequency to use.
The NTSB took note that the transportation of used vehicles, such as those that were loaded on vessels like the Höegh Xiamen, is currently excepted from hazardous materials regulations when a vessel has a stowage area specifically designed and approved for carrying vehicles. But It added that used vehicles “are often damaged and present an elevated risk of fire.”
Mercogliano, meanwhile, said older cars are not the only potential shipboard time bombs. New EV vehicles, he said, “are equally if not more dangerous” because of the lithium-ion batteries that carries them.
High-voltage lithium-ion batteries pose a risk if damaged of uncontrolled increases in temperature and pressure, known as thermal runaway, which can lead to fires, according to the NTSB.
Last year, another car carrier, the Felicity Ace — loaded with about 4,000 vehicles, including high-end Bentleys and Porsches — caught fire and sank about 253 miles off the Azores — just six days after it departed from Emden, Germany, according to the company that managed the vessel.
“Potentially highly flammable lithium-ion batteries pose a growing risk for container shipping and car carriers,” said global insurer Allianz in a recent assessment of worldwide shipping losses. “This battery market is expected to grow by over 30% annually over the next decade.”
According to Grimaldi Deep Sea, there were no electric vehicles aboard the Grande Costa d’Avorio.
Referring to the 2020 fire in Jacksonville, the company said “we reviewed our safety measures and found they were in line with top industry standards, but we continuously review these measures as a precaution.”
Asked whether the Port Newark fire suggested a design flaw in RO/RO ships it operates, the company added through a spokesman, “we operate standard-designed and approved RO/RO vessels by one of the leading class societies in the maritime industry.”
Problems in fighting the most recent fire, meanwhile — including issues related to the hoses that were available — have raised other questions about whether Newark firefighters were prepared for the situation that confronted them aboard the ship, or why they were ordered on board.
Fireboats battling the raging fire aboard the cargo ship Grande Costa D’Avorio in Port Newark, where two Newark firefighters died.Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media
Newark firefighters Augusto “Augie” Acabou, 45, and Wayne “Bear” Brooks Jr., 49, were killed when they were trapped on one of the cargo decks. Five others were injured.
Coast Guard Capt. Zeita Merchant, the commander of the Port of New York and New Jersey and the federal on-scene coordinator, said on Tuesday after officially declaring that “the fire is out,” that a comprehensive formal investigation is now underway into the fire aboard the Grande Costa.
“While this is a huge milestone and something that we can celebrate, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is merely the first step of a long process as we now need to consider the salvage and transfer of the vessel, a process that can be hazardous and complex as well,” she added.
Salvage operations could take one to two months, said Merchant.
Will the Grande Costa d’Avorio be scrapped or repaired?
It is too early to tell, replied Grimaldi officials.
__
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL.