Leak by damaged pipe causes fire to Ro-Ro’s engine room

While a coastal Ro-Ro passenger vessel was at berth, it was using a auxiliary boiler to provide onboard accommodation heating, while the engines were not operating. After the boiler began working, fire broke out near the boiler, caused by a leak.

While at its berth, a coastal Ro-Ro passenger vessel was using its small auxiliary boiler to provide onboard accommodation heating while the main engines were shut down.

A little after the boiler began operating, the engine room fire alarm activated, indicating a fire near of the auxiliary boiler. The vessel’s engineers gathered and went to the engine room to investigate. When they approached the auxiliary boiler they saw flames inside the burner casing and smoke entering the engine room through the burner unit’s melted sight glass. The engineers quickly shut the boiler down and put the fire out with a portable foam fire extinguisher.

Probable cause

When the boiler was examined, the engineers found that the internal fuel supply pipe to the burner nozzle was leaking at a compression fitting. When the pipe was removed, one of its compression fittings was damaged to the point it could no longer provide a seal against the fuel pressure. Fortunately, the consequences of the fire were not serious. However, boiler explosions, including those resulting in fatalities, have occurred when there has been fuel leakage into a boiler furnace.

Source: safety4sea