Crew Evacuated After Fire and Explosion on ONE Henry Hudson at Port of Los Angeles
Firefighters and federal authorities continued working Saturday to contain a hazardous-materials fire aboard the container ship ONE Henry Hudson after an explosion and onboard fire forced the evacuation of all crew members at the Port of Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) and port officials. By 6:30pm local time, the fire had been substantially contained.The incident occurred Friday at the Yusen Container Terminal in San Pedro. LAFD said the ship experienced an explosion that disrupted the vessel’s power and crane operations…
USCG Research Center Warns of Lithium-Ion Fire Hazards at Sea
As maritime industries accelerate toward electrification, the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center (RDC) has issued a warning: lithium-ion batteries—the same technology powering the global shift to hybrid and all-electric vessels—pose a unique and evolving threat when things go wrong. The April 2025 white paper, Lithium Battery Fire Hazards in the Maritime Environment, lays out the risks, firefighting challenges, and post-incident dangers associated with lithium battery fires at sea…
WSC Launches AI Tool for Detecting Misdeclared Goods
The World Shipping Council (WSC) has launched a Cargo Safety Program, an industry-led initiative to detect misdeclared and undeclared dangerous goods in order to prevent ship fires.The program combines AI-powered cargo screening and common inspection standards to identify misdeclared and undeclared high-risk shipments before they are loaded.Ship fires are at their highest level in over a decade, according to Allianz's Safety and Shipping Review 2025. Misdeclared dangerous goods are a leading cause of ship fires…
Fire Aboard Maersk Vessel is Contained
Danish shipping company Maersk said on Monday that a fire that broke out onboard the vessel Marie Maersk off Liberia on Wednesday last week had stopped spreading, and that firefighting efforts would be intensified further."Over the weekend, the crew's ongoing firefighting has stopped the fire onboard from spreading further," Maersk said in an emailed statement."We expect firefighting efforts to intensify further once the external firefighters can board Marie Maersk and bring further relief to the Marie Maersk crew…
UK Insurers Join Cargo Safety Initiative
Safetytech Accelerator, a non-profit established by Lloyd’s Register, has confirmed that UK maritime insurers, the UK P&I Club and TT Club, have signed up for its Cargo Fire & Loss Innovation Initiative (CFLII).The Initiative, launched in February 2023, is a multi-year collaborative technology acceleration program focused on reducing cargo fires and loss in maritime and its impact. It is already supported by anchor partners COSCO Shipping Lines, Evergreen Line, HMM, Lloyd’s Register…
Shadow Tanker Fleet Poses New Safety Challenges
Ongoing and new threats posed by the ripple effects of the Ukraine conflict will create challenges to the shipping sector over the next 12 months and beyond, according to insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE’s (AGCS) Safety & Shipping Review 2023.Every year AGCS analyzes reported shipping losses and casualties involving vessels over 100 gross tons. During 2022, 38 total losses were reported globally, compared with 59 a year earlier. This represents a 65% decline in…
Marine Insurance: Cargo Fires are a Burning Issue for Shipping
Commercial insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty released its Safety & Shipping Review, an annual analysis of shipping losses and accidents worldwide. The 2022 report reveals that the maritime sector continues its long-term positive safety trend over the past year with 54 total losses of vessels reported globally, compared with 65 a year earlier. This represents a 57% decline over 10 years (127 in 2012); while during the early 1990s the global fleet was losing 200+ vessels a year.The 2021 loss total is made more impressive by the fact that there are an estimated 130…
NFPA Certificated Marine Chemists – A Century of Fire Protection and Life Safety
As the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Technical Committee on Gas Hazards votes on the First Draft of the next edition of NFPA 306, Standard for the Control of Gas Hazards on Vessels, the NFPA Certificated Marine Chemist Program will mark 100 years of fire protection and life safety on marine vessels, in shipyards, marine terminals and waterfront facilities.What started a century ago as an industry effort to prevent fires on vessels under repair has never been more important. According to a 2007 report of the U.S.
Maritime Safety: Viking Aquires HydroPen Container FiFi System
Viking Life-Saving Equipment has acquired HydroPen, the company behind the unique HydroPen container firefighting solution. HydroPen, attached to a ship’s hose and raised on a telescopic arm by a single crew member, uses water pressure alone to power its ‘drill and spray’ nozzle to penetrate a container door before switching to spray mode to extinguish a fire with water, foam or CO2 – directly at its source.HydroPen was founded in 2016 by Martin Winkel, CEO and Jesper Rosenfeldt Hansen…
Top Maritime Trends of 2020: Tackling the Scourge of Containership Fires
The proliferation of serious fires onboard container ships in recent years has shocked the shipping industry. Here we examine the causes and impact of such fires and the urgent efforts being made by a wide variety of stakeholders to solve this seemingly intractable problem.Over the last decade there has been a 70% fall in ship total losses[1]. This has been widely credited to long term improvements in ship safety management and loss prevention programs. Counter to this trend, there has been a substantial increase in the number of fires in containers carried onboard container and RoRo ships.
