The shipping industry struggles with ways to cut cargo fires at sea

Global shipping companies are scouting ways to bolster safety in transporting cargo to safeguard containers or cars at sea that might get damaged due to fire accidents. Around 90% of vessels include containers and Ro-Ro ships.

A new initiative by leading carriers including Evergreen, HMM, Maersk, Offen group, ONE and Seaspan and Lloyds are exploring a feasibility study to understand how cargo is stuffed and monitored at sea. They are also planning to find answers to detect fire onboard ships and quicken ways to stop the spreading.

Rich McLoughlin, program director for the cargo fire and loss innovation initiative stated that the priority is to know the earliest indication of a fire accident and then create the right onboard responses to avoid the occurrences of a large fire. Furthermore, the initiative seeks to add proof points that the new upcoming tech can be used to enhance the response time over the existing ones to offer upgraded safety to the vessel.

Aslak Ross of Maersk said that the root cause for cargo fires is due to dangerous goods in the supply chain and there is a need to find a solution that can help arrest it.