Bad Boat Fire Santa Cruz Island

Reporting is all over the road - some are saying fatalities, others saying unaccounted for and poor search conditions (heavy fog). CNN’s report makes it sound like pax were all trapped below decks, crew made it out because the crew cabin wasn’t engulfed. Reporting is terrible thus far, though, and it’s still a very much active case, so I’ll anxiously wait for better details.
 
Here is the layout of the boat... 46 berthed crowded into one compartment below deck with only one stair up. There are pictures of the compartment on line. Tight and packed with wooden berths. A death trap. Crew was reportedly sleeping on the main deck.

https://www.truthaquatics.com/conception/
 
I saw that too, but this had to have been a certificated subchapter T boat - would have required alternate egress for the COI to have been issued. A berthing diagram from their advertising is hardly enough to draw many assumptions from. I just wonder why the alternate egress was insufficient - my guess, and it is merely a guess based on what I’ve seen in the news - is that whatever started and fueled the fire was efficient enough that it was a mass conflagration almost immediately and obstructed and/or obscured primary and alternate egress before anyone could even react. What I CAN’T get my head around is what that was?
 
On a diesel boat it can only be propane... if it went kaboom I’m the galley the stairs were blocked

I also wonder how many fire extinguishers were required below deck
 
How would scuba tanks react in a fire like this one? Boom?
 
quote:
Originally posted by Phillbo

How would scuba tanks react in a fire like this one? Boom?

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Don’t know how hot they’d have to get to reach a high enough pressure to fail, but metal fragments would be the primary hazard. I don’t think 80-100 cubic feet of compressed air is enough to significantly fan the flames, considering they’d be stowed on an open deck.
 
Looks like the firewall to the engine room held off flames to the ER which makes Pascals propane comment all the more valuable. Note the galley is forward.
 
Those down below probably secumbed to smoke inhalation before the fire reached them. This and two different drownings near me and hurricane Dorian. Not a great Labor Day weekend.
 
Propane is not allowed on a USCG Inspected vessel. Scuba tanks have a high pressure relief disc that will pop before the tank explodes and tanks hold atmospheric air, not O2. Divers have a lot of little gadgets (lights, cameras, computers, ETC) that are battery powered and need recharging between dives. An overheating Lithium Ion battery in the wrong place, maybe? Do a USCG PSIX search for the "Conception". You can set the start date for the search back to time of new construction. With the number of deaths involved, the Cause and Origin guys will do their best to find the source of the fire. A complete and thorough investigation by the Regulatory Agencies and private interest should highlight the issues. The bunkroom is not fitted with fire sprinklers, just portable fire extinguishers. A roving fire watch by a competent crew would have prevented or greatly altered this outcome. The NTSB will be involved.
 
interesting that the person interviewed said propane was used
 
quote:
Originally posted by L. Keith

Propane is not allowed on a USCG Inspected vessel. Scuba tanks have a high pressure relief disc that will pop before the tank explodes and tanks hold atmospheric air, not O2. Divers have a lot of little gadgets (lights, cameras, computers, ETC) that are battery powered and need recharging between dives. An overheating Lithium Ion battery in the wrong place, maybe? Do a USCG PSIX search for the "Conception". You can set the start date for the search back to time of new construction. With the number of deaths involved, the Cause and Origin guys will do their best to find the source of the fire. A complete and thorough investigation by the Regulatory Agencies and private interest should highlight the issues. The bunkroom is not fitted with fire sprinklers, just portable fire extinguishers. A roving fire watch by a competent crew would have prevented or greatly altered this outcome. The NTSB will be involved.

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Are you sure on the propane? I honestly don’t know - don’t deal much with subchapter T stuff. Just can’t think of what else could causes mass conflag that fast. Only thing I can think of - and the presence of propane has NOT been confirmed that I’ve read - is a steady leak that went undetected until it reached the LEL. Fire sprinklers I’ve never seen on a small passenger vessel - I’ve also never looked, so I’m certainly not arguing the point. But a roving fire watch I don’t think would have made a difference in this one particular case. All points to a sudden and overwhelming mass conflagration. I just can’t figure out what could have caused that.
 
If there was propane of any source on board that US Flag, United States Coast Guard Inspected Passenger Vessel, the vessel owner, master and others are going away for a very long time, or this was an intentional act. I have been dealing with USCG Inspected Passenger Vessels for Forty (+) years, propane is not allowed. Now you will see Propane Grills on USCG cutters, but the rules don't apply to the enforcers. Ask your OCMI. A crew member on a roving fire watch, should have entered the bunk room on regular basis during the night. A live person on patrol should be able to smell a small smoldering fire/see smoke, notice lights flickering, ETC. and SOUND THE GENERAL ALARM (required equipment) to wake EVERYONE. When you have 34 souls in your charge, you just can't get by with "Well, that's the way WE have always done it".
 
if it started in the Galley charging area, I'm surprised it would spread that quickly to block the escape hatch toward the stern
 
The vessel designer and original owner theorizes that the fire started in the bunkroom. I'm sure he based that on the photos of the vessel while burning. You can see that the hull sides in way of the bunkroom are in flames and completely burned through. Fire investigation 101 tells you that either the fire started in that area (and had more time to burn) or the area contained more fuel for the fire and received a larger volume of air to feed the fire. This is a wood boat, the wreck, if recovered will tell a lot of the story through burn patterns and what melted and what didn't melt. The materials in the bunkroom should have been fire resistant, but that does not apply to items brought aboard by the passengers, including extra pillows, blankets, bedding, Etc. Lithium Ion batteries can explode with considerable force and spread fire quickly. Some folks take sleep aids to help them sleep, some folks use noise cancelling head sets. The dirty little secret about boat fires in a confined space, is that a smoldering fire can generate enough poison/deadly gases to incapacitate/kill a person, before a standard smoke/CO alarm will sound. The investigation will tell most of the story.
 
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