The fire department in Tacoma, Washington, U.S.A. has issued a temporary shelter-in-place order following a fire onboard the Trident Seafoods catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise.
The fire began around 3 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, 8 April, and progressed throughout the ship over the next 30 hours. The vessel remains ablaze and has advanced to approximately 100 feet from the vessel’s freon tanks, which contain 19,000 pounds of the toxic chemical. The vessel also has an estimated 55,000 gallons of diesel, according to a U.S. Coast Guard press release.
The Coast Guard, the Tacoma Fire Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Washington Department of Ecology, the Washington State Maritime Cooperative, ECM Maritime, and Resolve Marine have all responded to the fire, which began while the Kodiak Enterprise was moored at Trident’s Tacoma facility on the Hylebos Waterway.
The Kodiak Enterprise’s freon tanks are equipped with heat-activated pressure relief valves designed to release freon into the air in an emergency. Freon can be harmful to human health if inhaled in large quantities or in a confined space, but its release from the vessel’s tanks into the atmosphere is not expected to pose a public health risk, the Coast Guard said. As a safety measure, the Tacoma Fire Department issued a temporary shelter-in-place order several nearby neighborhoods, asking residents to remain indoors and make an effort to limit their exposure to the smoke from the fire. Several area schools began with a late start on the morning of Monday, 10 April as a result of the fire, according to KIRO. Additionally, the EPA and contractors from the environmental consulting firm CTEH are conducing air-quality monitoring.
“The safety of the public and responders is our top priority,” Coast Guard Captain Youngmee Moon, the designated federal on-scene coordinator, said in the release. “The unified command is working closely to leverage each agency’s capabilities to respond to this incident as effectively as possible and keep the public safe.”
The fire was first spotted by a security guard at the site. The 276-foot fishing vessel had recently returned from Alaska and was docked in Tacoma for maintenance, according to a statement issued by Trident Seafoods. Trident activated its emergency response protocols and safely off-boarded three engineers without injury, the company said.
The fire is still active and emergency personnel “continue to fight the fire by providing cooling spray to the exterior of the vessel,” the U.S. Coast Guard said.
No signs of maritime pollution have been observed, according to the Coast Guard. As a preventive measure, responders deployed three layers of containment boom, three skimmers, and three boom boats, around the vessel. The Coast Guard said the cause of the incident is under investigation and that it will issue an update if and when updates become available.
The Hylebos Waterway has been temporarily closed to all commercial and recreational vessel traffic via a Vessel Traffic Service special measure. The Coast Guard deployed the Coast Guard Cutter Osprey and Station Seattle to enforce the closure, it said.
“We want to thank everyone for their prompt response and support. This has been a challenging containment issue and we appreciate the ongoing efforts over this Easter weekend,” Trident Seafoods CEO Joe Bundrant said in his company’s release. “Our protocols worked as designed and we will conduct a full investigation in conjunction with the agencies to determine the cause of the fire. While efforts continue to extinguish the fire and overhaul the vessel, we will begin communicating with stakeholders, redeploying the Kodiak Enterprise crew to other vessel and shore-based operations, and mitigating the impact on 2023 fishing operations and supply.”
Photo courtesy of South King Fire and Rescue (Tacoma, Washington, U.S.A.)
