In L.A. Harbor : 24 Stricken Fighting Fire Aboard Ship

“It was like descending into hell,” said a fire chief about a 1 1/2-hour fight Sunday to control a fire in the engine room of a 630-foot Dutch container ship that caused closure of the main ship channel at Los Angeles Harbor and resulted in treatment of 24 of the 150 firefighters at the scene for heat exhaustion.

“They had to put on full protective gear in 108-degree heat on a deck so hot they could hardly stand on it, then carry 100 pounds of gear down another five decks which were even hotter,” said city Fire Department Battalion Chief Robert Olsen. He said there was no estimate of the loss from the fire on board the 44,000-ton Wardrecht at Berth 229.

Potential for Disaster

“Black smoke was just pouring out for hundreds of feet from the stern when we got there and I thought we had the potential for another major ship disaster, but the irony was that the ship’s own carbon dioxide system had done most of the work for us and smothered most of the fire by the time we got in down there,” Olsen said.

The fire started from an electrical short that ignited a fuel blender in the engine room, Olsen said. The firefighters were all treated at the scene except for one man who was briefly hospitalized for a heart condition.

Although the main channel was closed for an hour, it caused no major shipping tie-ups said Sgt. Mike Godward of the harbor department police.