E3 - Fire-Fighting Appliances
E3 - Fire-Fighting Appliances
E3 - Fire-Fighting Appliances
3. Method of operation:
Fuel
Heat
Oxygen
Removing the fuel is not always a possibility. For oil fires specifically, it is often
possible to shut off the oil supply with a remotely operated valve. Other ways to
remove the fuel could be to dump the item on fire overboard. This is rarely possible.
This leaves the two major ways of fighting fires on board a ship; Cooling and
asphyxiation.
CO2 extinguisher: It works by depleting the oxygen from the air, thus
asphyxiating the fire. Not suitable for solids since
these are hard to extinguish by asphyxiation.
Preferable for electric fires since it does not conduct
a current and it requires no cleaning after the fire.
Fire hoses: Not suitable for electric fires or oil fires. Water is
sprayed on the fire, from which it consumes vast
amounts of energy to evaporate the water. This has a
huge cooling effect on the area. Since water is
usually heavier than oil and evaporates at a lower
temperature than oil, it is dangerous to use it for
fighting oil fires. If water gets below the surface of the
oil and evaporates, it will boil violently and spread the
oil around in small droplets.
Foam unit: Suitable for oil fires. It works by adding a foam agent
to the water used in fire hoses and by using a special
pipe to mix it with air to produce the foam. The foam
is sprayed out in a way so it can float on top of the
burning oil thus asphyxiating the fire.
Fixed CO2 system: Only to be used on the Masters order. The fixed CO 2
system can be released from the fire station and from
the CO2-room.
It works by depleting the oxygen from the air, thus
asphyxiating the fire.
The fixed CO2 system covers the engine room, the
cargo holds and the emergency generator room.
Water spray system: Fixed installation in the paint shop. Fresh water is
stored under pressure in the fresh water hydrophore
tank. When released, it will be atomised by the
nozzle heads and form very small droplets. These
will float freely in the air and extinguish the fire by
cooling and asphyxiation.