113 - Exploring Maritime Fire Safety with Bogdan Racięga

Fire Safety on Ships

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello everybody , welcome to the fire science show . There is a massive ship burning outside of Netherlands right now and looking at the footage in there , I thought to myself damn , I really don't know much about ships and I would love to learn about ships and maritime fire protection . So I thought let's make an episode about this type of fire stuff , and to do that I found a really good guest . This is my good friend , bogdan Raczenka from Baltic Fire Laboratory in Poland , who is dealing with IMO standards and maritime fire protection for quite a long time . He's running operations of a very big fire laboratory where the solutions that are used at the sea are tested in a full scale . Bogdan is also a member of IMO committees on fire safety and he's been recently chosen for the scientific council of the International Water Misassociations . So congratulations on that , bogdan , very nice .

Speaker 1 1:01

In this episode we're gonna briefly talk about what's happening on the Roro ship outside Netherlands , about the fire that's ongoing , but the focus is more on how fire safety is delivered on ships , in maritime vessels . How does it differentiate from buildings , from systems that we would encounter in our everyday engineering , and perhaps what can we learn from each other ? So from this perspective , I hope it is a very rich and interesting episode to you all , full of stuff that's perhaps unexpected , and if you have never dealt with any type of maritime fire protection , I'm sure you will find something very new and interesting in here . So let's not prolong this anymore . Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode .

Speaker 1 1:52

Welcome to the Firesize Show . My name is Wojciech Wimczynski and I will be your host . Before I let you into the interview , please give me a brief moment to appreciate the sponsor of this podcast , ofr Consultants . Ofr Consultants are a multi-award winning independent consultancy dedicated to addressing fire safety challenges . Ofr is the UK's leading fire risk consultancy . Its globally established team has developed a reputation for pre-eminent fire engineering expertise , with colleagues working across the world to help protect people , property and environment . In the UK , that includes the redevelopment of Printworks building in Canada Water , one of the tallest residential buildings in Birmingham , as well as historic structures like the National Gallery , national History Museum and National Portrait Gallery in London . Internationally , its work ranges from the Antarctic to Atacama Desert in Chile , to the number of projects across Africa In 2023 . Ofr is growing its team and is keen to hear from industrial professionals who want to collaborate on fire safety future this year . Get in touch at OFRConsultantscom .

Speaker 1 3:05

And now back to the Firesafety at Sea . Hello everybody , welcome to the Firescience Show . I'm today here with Bogdan Rachenka from the Baltic Fire Laboratory . Hello Bojo , hello , hello Bojo , great to have you on the podcast in a very timely manner , and the occasion is well unfortunate because there is a massive ship that's burning just north of the coast of Netherlands and this ship is generating a lot of attention within the community fire community , but not only , of course . The first thing you've learned about this burning ship is that it's caused by electric vehicles , and I appreciate that people could make this very strong conclusion based on the I don't know color of the smoke of the ship , but you know what . I invited you here to the podcast because I know you and your laboratory are very involved in fire safety of marine vessels and I don't know that many people who know a lot about that , and I would love to explore this . Maybe let's start with is fire safety on sea any different from the ?

Speaker 2 4:10

land . Yes , exactly . Thank you very much for a great introduction to this topic , because it's important . First of all , thank you very much for the invitation to your big project , firescience Show . There is , unfortunately , a topic a hot one that we can discuss about what is happening close to the coast of the Netherlands . So in the marine , it's really organized in terms of the fire protectionists the International Marine Day Organization , called IMO , which based in the London , united Kingdom . It's a good organization who has a lot of regulation , standards , how to prevent this kind of situation which happened , what we've seen in the television .

Speaker 2 4:49

We , as a specialist from the fire lab , which we are dealing normally with this kind of full-scale fire tests , seeking the laboratory full of smoke , we understood that in the TV you have only a partial information which are very true , so you need to be a really good filter to understand what's happening there . But we have to understand that this kind of carcass has already the extinguishing system which the most probably there on this accident and the previous one in February 2021 , was a CO2 system , which are dedicated for the fully closed areas , like the car decks , and because they are the so expensive cars , the CO2 gas system is perfect because you have no leaks from the water based system and you have a perfect system with about an interaction . So insurance company love it because there is no damage on the car from this kind of systems . So on the beginning this is a long talk , but we can speak about this hours . There are already the rules which define how to prevent , how to control this .

Speaker 1 6:01

Yeah , this is exactly why I invited you . You immediately jump into technical solutions that are most likely present on the ship in question , but I think the ship itself , I mean , it's super interesting and it's an anchor for our discussion , but I've never really went very deep on intended on fire safety on the sea . So , first of all , you've mentioned IMO as the organization . Is this the organization that sets up the rules ? Like , could you decide , like , what's happening on the ship ? Because if I build a building in Poland , I have Polish jurisdiction and I have Polish authorities who tell me what to do , even for colleagues in the UK or most parts of the world where you would have a local body that tells you , but ships , they swim on the flag of Panama or other countries , and is it government of Panama who tells them what they have to do ? I doubt that .

Speaker 2 6:57

Please . So , as you already mentioned , the flag is a kind of administration . So flag is above , but below there is a class society which has their own rules which are in line with the IMO rules as well , since the class society which are doing their own tests , their own investigation , they have different rules . Then you have a various of the class society . I can just say a few , like TNV , like Lloyd's , like the TV , like Rina , like in Poland , p&s , polish Register of Shipping . Then all these organizations are IACS , international Association of the Classification Societies .

Speaker 2 7:37

So if you have already the ship which is under construction , you as an owner , you have to find a class society which is able to classify your vessel to be according to the rules . Then , in terms of the fire protection , there is a kind of Bible for us as solas , which is an international conservation for the safety of life at sea . So according to chapter 2 of this solas , you are going to design the fire protection system together with this class society , which is a little different , like in the land , because my base is on the marine and now I'm testing a lot land based system in full-scale fire tests . So the biggest difference in the classification of this kind of fire protection system is that you , as a designer , you must send your design to the class society , and then a class society has a plan approval office and this plan approval office is responsible to say that this design is according to rules or not , and sometimes it's happened that is not so . That is a big rework of your design , even under the beginning of the project .

Speaker 1 8:49

But sorry , so I understand correctly . So there is this CEO of life safety at sea , which I would build some sort of reassemblance to , let's say international building code or some like global requirement , and the class societies are like a private authorities having jurisdiction that you have to submit to .

Speaker 2 9:09

Yes , what obliges you to seek that the class society is the requirement that the ship cannot swim unless it's certified by one or yes , but , as I mentioned , there are the class societies which has a really good roles in terms of the quantity of the application , like for the cargo vessel , for the cruise ship , for the yachts , ok , and there are which are really limited . So if you have much more recognized class society , then you are able to apply it for this role without any problem . So sometimes the owner is already arriving with that preferable class society because this class society is recognized worldwide . And then when you have a vessel , when you have a new one , checks of your fire protection system , for example , onboard . That is important to have the station of this class society worldwide .

Speaker 2 10:00

So , for example , in the US in Europe , in China , whatever , because then the inspector from the class society is arriving onboard and doing checks if the fire protection system is working well or not . And what is really good in the marine that you will get a certificate after the one is your service If your fire protection system is serviced and the maintenance well . And we know that sometimes on the land the system . This is a big issue , of course , to service the system according to their rules , which has a direct impact in your fire scenario . When the system is in the failure in case of the fire , this is the disaster from the design point of view , because you are not able to protect your building just because system is not serviced well . So this is a big issue and in the marine it's quite good and well done .

Speaker 1 10:54

Wow , I love to discover there is an entire world that I did not know about or did not understand . So thank you . This was a great idea to have the unfortunate circumstances , but , yeah , very , very happy to finally have a marine episode . So let's talk about ships . I know about building fire safety and I , through Baltic Fire Laboratory project , you also test a lot of solutions related to buildings . Yes , how does ship differ from a building ? That's what the stupid question that is . But if you could define the main differences in the fire safety of a vessel on the sea versus the fundamental principles that guide the design of a safe building , you know , for buildings I can set the groundwork . We have the basic requirements set up by the European Commission for buildings . They should limit the spread of fire , low evacuation , and so on and so on . So do you have an example of that ?

Speaker 2 11:45

for the sea as well . We need to start , then , the definition from the water based system , because I am a person who was involved in the water system High pressure , currently the low pressure . So in the marine vessel , you have to be honest , seven types of application where this kind of fire protection system are required , only seven . And all of these seven , last , are recognized worldwide . Then depends on the type of the vessel if it's cargo ship , if it's yacht , if it's cruise ship , then there are different roles adopted for this type of the vessel , because different fire scenario may happen on this kind of specific ships , like , for example , on the cruise ship . You will have the danger in the engine room , because engine rooms are huge . It's like city on the sea , with the 6700 people which are on the ship , and those vessels are really safe .

Speaker 2 12:40

Then we will , for sure , mention about the SAP roles , which are the safe return to port towards , which was introduced 15 years ago , approximately 2009 . It was for this kind of cruise vessel , but then , just basically , we mentioned this kind of areas which are to protect on the vessel . Those are seven accommodation , public space areas , machinery areas which , including the local protection system , total flooding system . Then we have our formal sorrow spaces and the car carriers areas .

Fire Safety in Marine Vessels

Speaker 2 13:14

Then there are the cabin balconies , because on the vessel you may have balconies where owners would like to have a drill , for example on your balcony , so you have to protect this balcony .

Speaker 1 13:25

It's sort of an atrium inside the building , though you can have flammable materials on the balconies .

Speaker 2 13:30

Exactly , and the fire on the balcony is really the danger for the vessel . That's why those systems are much more safe in terms of the quantity and the test . How to test this balcony system ? It's quite unique because you have to just blow the air , which is a simulator of the wind on the sea , with 10 meters per second approximately in your fire , and then you have to just achieve that dense criteria . In this system you need to just suppress the fire and stop the propagation to the next level , the balconies . But in this kind of conditions , because you are delivering constantly the oxygen , you are not able to extinguish the fire . Then we will discuss about the differences between the separation system and the extinguishing . So we was on the cabin balconies and then the last two areas on the vessel which are quite dangerous in terms of the fire are the galley areas , including the galley ducts and the deep-fired fire . So those areas are quite risky because there are the processing of the food and all this oil which may boil and ignite in the galley areas .

Speaker 1 14:42

So let me reiterate so you have a ship and your requirements towards that ship would depend on the application area , and those would be one accommodation , public spaces , two machinery spaces . So engines and stuff like that , I guess , yes , that are meant for total fooding . That's what I meant , yes . Then the machinery spaces , which would be like locally protected , row , row . What's a row ? Row , row , row . I love the name , but what does it mean ?

Speaker 2 15:10

It's a space where you have just cars , lorries , trucks . It will do those areas with the transfer of this kind of cars .

Speaker 1 15:19

So a space where vehicles come in and exactly and you store them . Well , okay . Then you have the balconies . This is like I did my PhD on atria . I love this . I've never thought you could really have like combustible materials on a balcony and 10 meters per second wind . That kind of makes it a little more difficult than my simple setup for my PhD . And then the fat friars , galley docks . So essentially you have a city on the sea with all these different types of areas meant for humans , meant for storage , meant for machinery , but also , you know , from the materials you've sent me , there is not that many standards . Like if you look at landscape in the building environment , we would have like hundreds of different types of applications or occupancies , how we would call them , where we play with .

Speaker 2 16:05

So it seems a little better organized in the Because the marining trust when they come with this issues . Many years ago they solve these issues with the standards . Okay , if you have an organization worldwide which is a more , and then you have all this class societies , which they have only meetings , they are working all together . But then if you are arriving just to the land business , to the area of your country , for example , which they have all the rules , then start to be quite difficult because all count they have their own rules from the government or from the worldwide , from the different countries as well , and then we are having to the maybe 51 hundred standards which are quite similar but not the same .

Speaker 2 16:56

I don't want to make advertising here for the standards on the long basis , but there are plenty of them and some of them are specific , some of them for the specific application . But this start to be a really difficult . That's why I'm struggling with this long based system in our first fire test because many of them based on the marine standards . So something was invented in the marine and then it was just uploaded as a good expertise and the knowledge , the land system , but on the marine . If we are testing the marine system for the public spaces , for example , a sofa tests or any cabin tests . Comparing to the land system , the marine test is much more difficult to pass because of the heat release for the cushions , for the forms in the matter that this was the reason .

Speaker 1 17:48

What is the reason behind this difference , like why ? I mean it is your subjective feeling , but I share the feeling that when I see what you do to those spaces , when you send me videos , it's absolutely crazy and compared to what we do to land based solutions . I love calling the land based , but where does this difference originate from ? Is this related to the fact that the vessel must be like self sustaining ? There is no fire department coming in five minutes to save you ?

Speaker 2 18:18

Exactly , exactly . This is my point that if you are in the middle of the ocean and if you have a big issue with your vessel , you are responsible for this , what is happening on the vessel . Then if everything is going really bad , you can jump to the sea only . So this is the worst case which may happen . And if this will happen , like with this tragedy , because the Netherlands , there was a hell of a not far away , so there was really lucky that was evacuated . Sadly , the one person died in this cargo space area but unfortunately it was not the first person which died this year and the previous year with the similar Accidents .

Speaker 2 18:58

So there is some in this area and especially with the people which are going inside of this car carrier decks and because of suddenly it's a kind of destination , because few weeks ago we just doing the fire test for this I'm 14 . Third , which is a long run . Yes , fire test and this test on the beginning , with the 2.5 minutes pre burn time looking nice . After three minutes of the burning in the laboratory size , 9500 cubic meters , you could visit the close to zero and then fire peak , arriving within 1213 minutes . So you are on the beginning with this five minutes , that everything is going fine , then the fire is growing a lot and in the 12 minutes you have on the ceiling , five meters high , eight hundred nine hundred sessions approximately , and the old fire fighting system , automatic one , is still fighting with this fire Because the termination of the fire test . It's a 30 minutes , 32.5 minutes , after 20 , 25 minutes . The fire is under control by the fire suppression system and the temperature goes down .

Speaker 1 20:10

On the end of the test we have , maybe in the laboratory for how 5045 cells inside so just to comment on the scale of this test so you basically grow the fire to extremely large size , basically a size that is unapproachable by human , pretty much . If you , if you are , visibility in lab drops to zero . That means that not a good chance . You would stand against the fire for sure , unless you're like full PPE . So that's unapproachable fire . Yet you test it , you measure the stuff it needs to be contained , extinguished and made sure it's not going to reignite again .

Speaker 2 20:48

Yes , that's right and especially what we've seen in this peak during the 12 , 13 minutes . It's this what we are see on our cameras which are inside of our compartment . Those are the cameras which are able to resist those cameras standing maybe 10 , eight , five method from the source of the fire and we see what's happening inside during this process . We have a scraper system , which is the cleaning system , the laboratory off , because the laboratory size is quite huge , that we are able to keep the oxygen level according to the rule and we seen when we are at the beginning of this fire that the fire is developing . Then there is a huge over pressure in the laboratory hole . Of course , in the lab hole , from the building perspective , we already prepared the lab release , the release value , this over pressure , but some fact that this laboratory is resisting this kind of fire is already something which you feel first time when there was a few years ago in this kind of firstly fire testing . I do not expect such a feeling and with each fire test I have a big and bigger respect to this fire behavior and to this natural of the fire , especially so I know , in my opinion , what those guys seen when they open this car attack and unfortunately , when it was a gas system , they opened this deck .

Speaker 2 22:22

The concentration of the agent drop down immediately and then the fire again . And this is a big issue from the rules point of view , because if you discharge the system , what how ? I test the system in the laboratory after discharge you . You are waiting 15 minutes To accept the system if there is not a real of the fire . So unfortunately , sometimes is a human factor that may lead to disaster . I don't want to judge , but there was so many comments already about the fire down there's the ventilation funds that the smoke was going from these ducts . But during the discharge system you have to be aware that you have a huge over pressure from this agent which you are injecting inside . So your farm must resist this . If not , then you have a system which is not able to fight with this fire in the day when it was accepted by the class society , in the day when it was released from the ship .

Speaker 1 23:25

Human error or people feeling with the systems is not uncommon in buildings either , and there are many stories of fires that have been under control until someone opened the gate or something and then the reignited . I wouldn't say this is very rare , though the consequences at the sea seem to be quite different from the consequences on the lands of what you can do . Like you , really , limited by the fact that you are remote , with no External access and going back to the ship in in Netherlands , really cannot do anything from outside on such a ship if the space is designed to be completely sealed and impenetrable from inside outside , because that's how you keep your gas agent inside it's also not penetrable from outside to inside . So if the flow path is established , you can . It doesn't take that much for a fire to continue burning and you also probably cannot just love the whole thing because that's how you think about right ?

Speaker 2 24:25

Yes , exactly and , from the technology point of view , how those vessels are designed . This need to be a solid block almost to just keep everything inside safe . Unfortunately , the rules do not follow with this . What is happening in the technology , like we are talking about the ? Now I'm not yet sure how owners of this vessel are dealing with that explosive areas from these TV cars . On the beginning he was informed about the 25 cars . After this jump by found it almost . So this is a big question mark . And the other organization has the subcommit is like , I mean the subcommit of the fire protection and that are told whether we have this kind of accidents and this topic for sure will be a really hot topic on the next session , which will be in the February next year in London .

Speaker 1 25:20

To get things straight , it's not that ships started running down from the moment electric vehicles were introduced . There were Earlier catastrophical fires on the road ships , where the whole ships were lost in a fire . I've read about at least two of them .

Speaker 2 25:37

Yes , so , yes , and listen , it depends how you are really aware about the system , firefighting system which you can implement in your role of assault , this protocol , imo 1430 , which was currently released with revision 3 , it's because , to increase the safety on the vessel and throw a January 5th , 26th , the rotor vessel will be hit detection cable on the top of the ceiling . Then you have only the Luch system , which precisely just started the separation process in the area where the problem , which is quite similar for the tunnel system , to be honest . But as we already mentioned about this tragedy with the rotor vessel , if we're thinking about the rotor spaces , we have to divide the rotor spaces to the completely open rotor spaces , call it a weather deck , where you are able to reach these spaces with the fire monitors , and currently the IMO is working on the implementation to reduce quantity of these open decks and to add to more fire monitors that are there in Scandinavia's laboratories .

Speaker 2 26:47

What was the fire monitor . It's just a fire hose which is remotely controlled or just controlled by the human .

Speaker 1 26:55

Sorry , I have to double check you on the nomenclature , because for you it's something very obvious . And when I hear fire monitor there's a different image in my head than remotely controlled water gun .

Speaker 2 27:07

Yeah , exactly At the beginning . It was for me as well , as a few years ago , but this is not my clatter for the marine industry . So this is a perspective about the water deck . Then you have a rotor deck which are closed and which are half open and even closed , but not that much . For example , when you have an open rotor deck , you have an opening on the left side , on the port side of the vessel , so you are able to reach this fire even in the port . But then if you have a closed rotor deck , you are able to suppress this fire much more efficiently because the water-based system which is there , if it's sprinkler rancher , if it's water-based system , has better conditions to work , without any wind , without any problems with the distribution of this water which is released from that nozzle .

Speaker 1 28:01

Bogdan , I'm going to push a bit on the suppression side now . So let's assume you design a space which is a closed space , and for me this is very similar to how I would design a car park , for example . So yeah , in a car park I would just take an FP13 , pick a hazard , assign the amount of water , the distribution of the nozzles , pick a specific type of sprinkler that fits my needs and I'm done . What would be the approach and goals and your expectations towards any type of suppression system on a closed space when you approach that ?

Speaker 2 28:39

Okay , so , according to design of 1430 , you have a two-type of the system that you can use . First , all the sprinkler system where you are going with the water density , then you are stick to this and you can use the system to just respect this quantity of and does it define the maximum area of it's 280 square meters for the wet system ?

Speaker 2 29:02

And it's 365 meters for the reaction system . And if you have a deluge system , there is a mathematical formula that is two times multiplied 20 meters multiplied the breadth of the vessel , it means how wide it is . So again , it's similar to the tunnel system . These are crazy large spaces , to be honest . Yes , but to be honest , those spaces are divided as well inside .

Marine Fire Protection and Water Mist

Speaker 2 29:29

So each firefighting system active fire protection , must work with the passive fire protection . So if someone is thinking that you have a great active fire protection system but the passive fire protection system is not able , for example , to close off the fire dampers in the machinery space , this system will not work . So there is a lot of factors which need to work together to have this extinguishing effect or the suppression or so on . So it was a sprinkler system , the drencher one on the road . Then you have a performance based system , which is the water mist system High pressure , low pressure and those systems are tested , like this one which I tested in the Baltic Bay Lab in this four-sky fire test , and there is no information how many water you need to spread .

Speaker 2 30:18

You need to just release during the fire test , you need to just achieve the temperature limitation on the ceiling and then the damage cannot be more than 45% of these wooden pallets . For example , for the truck scenario , 112 pallets are in the fire and after the 32.5 minutes of the fire , damage of the pallets cannot be more than 45% . It means the fire is closed , it's under control and the fire is not able to spread out to the different object , and this is the aim of the suppression system . As a performance test , I'll just plug it .

Speaker 1 30:56

You have some videos in open access to YouTube or somewhere where I could send people to see how a fire of 100 pallets look like , because that's a large fire .

Speaker 2 31:06

Yeah , listen , we try to share this knowledge from the Active Fire Protection Test and we are doing the videos from our tests and about the road up fire test . The target is to issue the video within two , three weeks from now , because we are working on this so we can link to this podcast .

Speaker 1 31:27

I'll be watching closely and when the video comes up I'll share it with the audience . And for now , we continue on the performance-based design of Fortamist Exactly .

Speaker 2 31:36

So we had this discussion about the limitation , about the damage of the pallets . And then , during a time of the tests , you have a fire which is shielded because this is a simulation of the crack which has already some spructons above and unshielded fire . So above this shielded fire , with the average of the five minutes , you cannot cross more than 350 celsius on the thermocouples on the ceiling , which are offset 75 millimeters from the ceiling . Then , under this fire , which is not shielded by any steel sheet , you can achieve 300 celsius maximum with average five minutes .

Speaker 1 32:16

If all these parameters are fine , your system is passed the test and then you can install this system on board of the vessel On the parameters that were developed during the test , so you know the spacing , the amount of water and so on Exactly .

Speaker 2 32:32

So the parameters from the manufacturer point of view , who are arriving to the laboratory , is a nozzle which has a specific spacing , which has a specific cut value , which is information , how many of the water this nozzle is able to spread in a specific time , and the pressure on this nozzle as well , this approach is very close to what you'd normally do with water mist in buildings , actually as well .

Speaker 1 32:55

Exactly , you're a water mist guy . So there is this world of protocols and fire tests , in which you demonstrate the capability of water mist to work in building fire scenarios . Is this something that originated from Wightarm actually ?

Speaker 2 33:08

It's originated from the Wightarm , 100% because the water mist history it's based on the Wightarm . To be honest , previously it started on the submersion vessel , then spread to the smaller vessel . Those systems in the past was like the FAC system . But when the rules come into the force , when the IMO allows to use the performance-based system , the water mist system starts to grow a lot .

Speaker 2 33:38

And there was one accident , really bad in 1990 , which was a fire on the Scandinavian star in April 1990 , where , unfortunately , the Aaronis was there who left approximately two or three places with the fire and the 158 people died on this really bad accident . And it was two months after this fire , in June 1990 , there was already this manufacturer from the Scandinavia with the water mist system who proposed to the government how to prevent with performance-based system like the water mist , such accident . Because on that time when the Aaronis left this fire on the corridor , the fire spread extremely and the materials which was used for this corridor , for these walls , was really toxic . So there was an additional factor of course . But the fire grew a lot and the people which died there was because of these toxic gases especially . So there was a time when the water mist system just arrived to the market like that . In the same time , there was a Montreal Protocol which whipped off the haul on gases as well , so there was a perfect time for the water mist system to go to the marine industry .

Speaker 1 34:57

But it's very interesting that things would cross disciplines or , in this case , center buildings , and you would not give it a strong thought that it's related to a corridor fire on a ship vessel , as from many , many years before , I would love to go back to the strategic thinking about the fire safety of the vessels because it's something very interesting to me as well .

Speaker 1 35:17

So these ships are big , like we're talking about really big ships 340 meters , 340 meters , yeah , that has a really big ship and you can have it even bigger and you can have these vacation boats where you would have thousands of people on them . So I struggle to think . Would you consider this ship as if you would consider the building like a building with its compartments one fire in the building , that's it , or you would consider it as some sort of local ecosystem , with parts of the ship being independent from each other ?

Speaker 2 35:52

Yeah . So this is the perfect place to introduce where there's quite a large vessel , like those other cruise ships . Luckily , until now there was no accident on the cruise ship vessel . We've justified that this system for the cruise ships is really safe . So there was a time this 12 , 13 years ago when the sapper tour force rules arrived on board this vessel because of the importance that you have 7,000 people on the

Ship Fire Protection and Evacuation Systems

Speaker 2 36:19

town on the sea .

Speaker 2 36:19

So from the fire perspective those vessels are well designed . You have a structural fire protection plan and the active fire protection plan which just defines what kind of structural things are there , like the isolation , like the quantity of that steel , then integration between the insulation and the steel blocks , how long this passive fire protection is able to resist . And , of course , as the biggest fire risk is a machine in space where you have about a 60 bulkheads . So if you have the fire there , the machinery's space , fire cannot affect any areas of the accommodation . This defines you what kind of class of the bulkheads you have associated with the next part between the machinery and the accommodation .

Speaker 1 37:05

So sorry , so it doesn't affect anything outside , which would mean that if the fire is there , the ship should take care of that and technically you should not see any effects of that fire anywhere else , like you cut it off , you flood it or whatever suppression system that you use until there's no fire , no reignition . When it's cooled down , you can open it and the rest of the ship should not be under threat . Do I understand correct ?

Speaker 2 37:31

Exactly and Vojtek this say return to port vessel are in the ideology of the Red Dundals , 100% Red Dundals .

Speaker 1 37:40

Okay .

Speaker 2 37:41

Fire fighting system is 100% Red Dundal . It means you have a fire pump on the aft part of the vessel . It means on the back and on the front , on the forward . If you have a fire or a flooding of the compartment where you have your fire pump , this space , from the risk point analysis you are just assume as a lost space . You can not base anymore on this pump unit . You need to automatically switch to the next pump unit which is able to serve the rest part of the vessel . Then the firefighting system is connected in a kind of ring so you are able to deliver anywhere the vessel where you have trouble . So this is a kind of safe return to port approach which is 100% redundant .

Speaker 1 38:29

What about people , like if you have a fire ? You've mentioned these balconies or residential spaces . You've mentioned deep-fat friars , so you have restaurants and other spaces like that . Let's imagine you have a large fire in a restaurant space . What do you do with people ? You just get them in the next compartment . Is there a designated safety space ?

Speaker 2 38:48

And this is great on the marine that despite this next compartment you have a main vertical zones . So this main vertical zones is areas where you are evacuated . The people are closing the fire door and the fire cannot spread from this area where is the fire ? To the next main vertical ?

Speaker 1 39:07

zone , so the ship would be vertically separated into zones , exactly .

Speaker 2 39:10

Like this 340 long cruise ship has approximately seven main vertical zones , so the zones can be maybe 50 , 60 meters long . In case of the trouble in one zone , you are evacuating the people to the next one . What is more important because there is a discussion about the second staircase in the UK and so on , each main vertical zone here has their own staircase .

Speaker 2 39:37

So you are able to evacuate the people even vertically to the embarkation areas , in case they evacuate the people on the sea , but in this cruise ship , the system is so restricted in terms of the pass fire test . Until now , we do not hear any tragedy . There were the fires on the cruise ship , but this fire was really imitated to the area how it was designed to be closed , so this was fine . I remember only one fire on the expedition vessel in 2017 , which goes out of the control , and maybe this will be interested to you and for all who listen to us , which just remind that active fire detection system must work with the pass fire protection . So there was a fire in this set-up vessel . You have engine room 1 and engine room 2 . If you completely burn the engine room 1 , the second engine must work to just arrive the vessel to the place which is safe , and on that time , the fire broke in the engine room and , of course , the crew in the engine control room , because engine control room is a space where you have a control room on your system , including the fire fighting system . They seen the fire already in the area of engine room A , for example , and they delayed the activation of the total flooding system because they were not sure .

Speaker 2 41:06

Yet Generally the CO2 system was swapped , from the tight point of view , by the water system . Because when you release the CO2 system and you have people not evacuated in the engine room , you may kill these people which are not evacuated In case of the fire . You risk a lot . So now the delay is much reduced with the water remiss system . And they delayed this water remiss system release and the badly that the fire spread on the cable trace , the penetration between the engine room A and B and then spread by the penetration to engine B . They got the fire from engine room B . They start to switch water remiss system from engine room A to B and then vessel evacuation . The vessel was inclinated , the water remiss system was not able to handle this fire because it was too late . So it's not like that the water remiss system is working , but there was a sequence of the human error plus the penetration which was done after the investigation , not according to the rules . It means pacifier protection leads to the disaster .

Speaker 1 42:13

This is a very interesting interaction between the systems .

Fire Safety Testing in Maritime Systems

Speaker 1 42:17

When I brought up the urge to record this episode on LinkedIn , I wrote my thoughts about the Netherlands ship fire , especially regarding the EVs , and Professor Vincent Vannegan has commented that EVs are a completely new ignition source and this new ignition source creates a completely new hazard . It was something I was thinking about really a lot Like does ignition source really matter that much ? I mean going that far with the design of the systems you would perhaps design with the assumption that there will be ignition , like , yes , going through seeing your tests , they're not tests whether a sample can ignite or not . It's not like your class tests . Will a cigarette light this cushion or not ? Yeah , this we were talking about burning 100 pellets and the pool fire underneath them in an enclosed space in a lab which you cannot enter because it's so vicious . So how do you consider the ignition case and what's the fundamental in front of that in the design of fire safety of marine ?

Speaker 2 43:26

vessels . So if we just stick to the marine rules and therefore this protection of the RODX , the ignition at the low of the object is just a quantity of the captain which is able to ignite these pellets for a certain time , and the certain time is 2.5 minutes when the system is off and that fire is growing , and what was the approximate size of a fire at 2.5 minutes ?

Speaker 1 43:53

just for a reference for the listeners .

Speaker 2 43:55

For the 5 meters , because I'm doing that one , 112 pellets with the moisture , which is between 12 and the 16% , is 40 megawatts . It's a 30 . Yes , it's theoretical only because of course we do not lead to the free band , because then we will burn our lab a lot . So we need to just assure that everything goes well . And in this kind of fire tests , of course you base that everything will go well with your firefighting system . But we had the situation that the laboratory itself is to find the limit between the successful test and the failure . And , to be honest , from failures I am able to learn and from the successful tests okay , it was tested , it was fine , we can repeat , we can justify that everything worked well . But if you have a failure , you start to analyze what's going on . So this is the best and if you have a failure , you have to be prepared with the backup system number 1 , 2 , 2 , make laboratory safe . So this is something that really make us aware and we have to prepare the risk analysis .

Speaker 2 45:07

What will happen if , for example , we had a hangar test with the 300 liters of the jet fuel under the aircraft and the firefighting system ? The water base is not able to handle this fire , what we do . So we had a two backup system with the phone which we are able to keep the fire within 30 seconds , something like that . So always we need to think above this what may happen . But about the size of the fire it's with the 5.40 meters , something like that and how you make the sample to the fire . It's extremely important , because we meet in the SFP in Berlin and I was digging a lot about your walls , about the moisture for the wood and so on , because daily I seen a peak impact and the factor in the conditioning of the material for the fire tests , because then the most important in your fire test is that you can repeat this test after 2 years , 3 years , with the same sample .

Speaker 2 46:30

I would say and that's the statement that I make are following , the designers are following .

Speaker 2 47:32

That's that's great and it will be great if in the land based system , we all each other , find owner rules which will follow .

Speaker 2 47:40

But there are the business of the companies , of course , which are they invest a lot of money , develop their own test protocols , so we cannot stop them , in my opinion . There are good companies which develop the fire tests for the specific application , different one for the specific application , and you can divide them by the europe , us , whatever , but depends what your customer put , your specification or your government already out that you have to comply with this , your rules , for example , in europe in the end . Because now for the water mist system , we are sitting to develop this dn 14 and 972 , which finally arrive on the market . That went after 23 years . This is a big , a big challenge to combine all of these manufacturers , to be on the same level , to not make a damage to water , because the performance based system , require a lot of negotiation between each manufacturer and do you think this type of collaboration , this type of common effort is present at the sea with the class societies and belle , I think so .

Speaker 2 48:54

I think so . But this , what you are doing great in the SFPE and on the Lightway system , those are these meetings . Those are these meetings and all these organizations and the sharing the knowledge , especially in the times where we have a lot of trouble with the application . What may us aware about what will happen ? What I see in the TV , what you see in the TV . Sometimes there are the accidents which are not exactly real , like you have a hydrogen fire which is classified as an EV fire , and so on .

Speaker 2 49:28

So it's hard to filter this and it's overused of all these accidents and we need to be smart with this . Like we discussed yesterday , the war , the suppression . Nowadays it is a challenge because it's overused , in my opinion . The suppression system for the energy storage system like your previous episode , this is something which arrives and seems like all the systems are good because the commercial people telling that this is a suppression system and working well with the thermal runaway . When I go indeed , I will go in trouble because I'm testing the system and I see the differences . I don't want to be sued by no one , so I need to be a really politician in this kind of ways , but there are the differences and what you will choose . This is the end result of what you may see in your fire , in your ESS as well .

Speaker 1 50:24

Given my limited exposure to maritime systems , I had to pick the one . Most impressive thing would be this full-scale fire testing . For sure , I'm generally impressed on the scale , on how these systems are tested , how big fires they have to withstand , how the conditions are defined . It really gives me this feeling of trust when I see these solutions . If it can handle such a big fire in a lab , that means it really works . The second thing that you also briefly mentioned in the episode is the maintenance . If you have to do the proper maintenance every year to renew your certificate , if there is a network of accredited verifiers who are related to these classification societies who make sure that actually the maintenance is performed and it is performed at a high standard , I think perhaps this is something that we lack in the building site . I mean , we do have maintenance . Of course we do have maintenance , but it's not as executed and double-checked as it is on the sea . Perhaps .

Speaker 2 51:31

I think it's not fully agree with this , wojtek . And just example when you have a well inspection when the class society arriving on the vessel for the various checks on the system , you need to present that you have a certificate , for example , from this manufacturer that authorizes you to sale the vessel and I'm regulate this who can authorize this as well , based on the certificates . So it's really well what is in our country and what I see in Europe as well . There are some areas where we can improve in terms of this maintenance because there are not yet a lot of authorization for this type of system .

Speaker 2 52:17

Someone can service your system because it's one euro cheaper , and then you have trouble with the case of the fire because system is not able to start that . So this is something that , in my opinion , my work and I can tell you that we have in our minds a standardization body that this standard for the maintenance of the system will came in the force within a few years for the water system as well , and I really strongly believe that this will happen , because this increased the over the system .

Speaker 1 52:50

And for the end of the episode , I must give you the put into to tell me a few words about your laboratory , because I know it's , let's say , a recent project and already creating quite some noise in space . I'm very happy to have another passionate arsonist in my country who does similar stuff . So yeah , tell me a little about the multi-file lab ?

Speaker 2 53:14

Yes , thank you for this question . Yes , we are quite active . I only seen this area in this part of the Europe especially , and the laboratory was built in the conceptual design in 2016 , 17 approximately and then arrived to the time of the 2018-20 , where it was ready for the first fire test . The laboratory size it's 25 , 25 floor area , 15 meters height , then 13 meters area below the movable ceilings . We have two movable ceilings , 10 tons each , so we have a kind of heavily machinery inside it . We are able to perform quite a large active fire protection fire test because in a one ago , we are able to make 9500 cubic meters fire test , which is quite good for this part of the Europe . We are very happy that we are starting to get a request from the certification bodies to cooperate with us , not only from this country , but worldwide , so this is something that people see us outside even not so much inside our country , but outside is a really good feedback . So I'm treated to work with those people with this certification body .

Speaker 1 54:28

Fantastic , great to learn we have this type of capabilities .

Speaker 2 54:32

Yes , and what I want to add as well , that you can build any whole 9500 anywhere , but the problem is to find the people . So there was a time that we really struggled with the people to adopt them to this kind of the job that we are doing . So the laboratory , in my eyes , those are the people . It's not only the building , but those are the people which are really creative . And what is making me happy , that if someone arriving here aboard or any customer , see that we , our approach is a little creative and we are doing this test which really digging into the details , like the moisture , like the type of the wood and so on , to repeat this test in exactly the same conditions . So we are applying a science to this material which we are doing . That's why we are quite unique , I believe so .

Speaker 1 55:26

Fantastic . Bogdan . Thank you very much for this insightful talk and giving me a glimpse of what the world of maritime fire protection looks like . I'm sure we will have more talks like this , because I see man's value in transferring this knowledge from the sea to the land , perhaps even from the land to the sea . Maybe , in some cases , maritime would also appreciate some solutions we've worked out in here , definitely . So all the best , man , and when you burn the next 40 megawatt fire , make sure to let me know .

Speaker 2 55:59

Exactly , you are only 300 kilometers . I will invite you to follow in fire . 28 megawatt , so this is a real hell .

Speaker 1 56:10

I mean 10 megawatts . I probably would not bother to drive 15 , maybe , but 40 . I would drive for a 40 megawatt fire for sure .

Speaker 2 56:18

Very welcome , vojtek , and thank you very much for the invitation .

Speaker 1 56:23

Stay in touch and that's it . I hope you've enjoyed this friendly chat with my friend Boczow from Baltic Fire Laboratory . I've wanted to do ships and maritime for a long time . Now we have a very big fire going on because of that land , so I guess that's a nice occasion to finally touch this subject . And , as I've expected , I had no idea what's happening on the sea and it is very interesting to learn what these guys are doing in terms of fire protection , of course . So I hope you've learned something new and interesting . Perhaps you've discovered a whole new world , just like I did .

Speaker 1 56:57

Seriously , I had no idea how advanced and interesting the world of fire protection at the sea is . I must say I've seen some footage from Bogdan's laboratory , so I perhaps was ready for the scale of fire tests and the scale of extinguishing systems that they're using . But you know , holistically thinking about it , how it connects with the passive fire protection , how it connects with the redundancy of the systems , how humans can , unfortunately , interact with the systems and in this case , if humans break the operation of the system , that's it for the ship . There is no backup fire suppression like Bogdan has in the lab that will extinguish the fire in 30 seconds . If you break the system it will not work and the ship is perhaps lost .

Speaker 1 57:41

Could be the case with the ship that we are observing today . I guess the inquiry will show . I will also be watching it because , you know , with all the EV drama , I'm very interested in what part of the fire damage to that ship EVs were , what extent the EVs are increased hazard in ships , but also in build environment . So that's a space I am closely observing . So that would be it for today . Thank you very much for listening and I really hope to see you here again next Wednesday . Thank you , bye . This was the Fire Science Show . Thank you for listening and see you soon .