Letter: Today’s marine safety steps don’t address battery fires

The Conception fire may be due to a collision between outdated safety standards and new technology.

Today’s marine safety steps
don’t address battery fires

Re: “How could a fire incinerate a 75-foot dive boat so fast?” (Eastbaytimes.com, Sept. 3):

The Conception fire may be due to a collision between outdated safety standards and new technology.

I have dived aboard both the Conception and Vision. They had fire extinguishers, fire hoses and engine-room fire suppression. Cooking was electric; the galley was thought low risk for fire.

A crew member bunked with the passengers to provide emergency assistance; she died with the others.

Marine safety targets small fire suppression and evacuation when the boat is sinking. Lithium ion batteries and chargers have made the galley high risk.

If abused, batteries can exhaust fountains of high temperature flames during thermal runaway; can rapidly ignite wooden benches, tables and nearby batteries; fire can spread quickly, allowing crew little time to respond.

Battery fires are not addressed by current assumptions of marine safety, but can be prevented and contained without impossible escape routes, or relying on the vigilance of crew members.

Stanley Sciortino
Board member
Alacosta Divers
Albany

 

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