Fire Aboard The MS Eurodam???

[BalconyBumz]

Does anyone know if this is true? I just read it on a website!

 

November 11, 2008

Fire Aboard The MS Eurodam

A cruise ship passenger has reported that at about 0400 hours the passengers were startled from their deep sleep by an alarm followed by the captain's voice telling them there was a fire in the engine room.

[TMJplus1]

The only reference I could find was on a website where someone claims to be live blogging from the Eurodam. If what the blog says is true, it appears to be a minor fire. Here's a link to the blog - hope this is okay to post:

 

http://thedonovan.com/archives/2008/11/livebloggin_the.html

[Philip217]

Ships the size of Eurodam - and larger - experience one or two fires every week.

 

Sometimes it is a passenger with a candle or an iron, sometimes a crewmember smoking in bed; often it is matches or a cigarette lighter igniting in the incinerator feeder. Occasionally it is a grease fire in the galley, a lint fire in the laundry, or oily rags in the engine room. Most of these fires never go so far as to cause an alarm to sound or an announcement to be made. But occasionally a cautious Captain will make an announcement or sound an alarm, just to err on the side of caution.

 

In short - not a big deal.

[jtl513]

Ships the size of Eurodam - and larger - experience one or two fires every week.

 

Sometimes it is a passenger ...

 

In short - not a big deal.

We got "smoked out" of our cabin on the Noordam when it was about 6 months old. An overheated bearing in a HVAC blower.

 

Interesting that the blog quotes the Captain as saying "we have a fire in a boiler". Since boilers aren't used for engines anymore, what would it be? Desalinization? Just hot water?

[BrianTom]

Think it is interesting how he says it is live and he is blogging live and then the final word is :

 

PS. I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

How could he be sleeping and blogging live and knowing that he went back to sleep?

 

Sounds phony.

 

Tom

[BrianTom]

He must of paid close attention at secretary school because he was able to type the captians statements perfectly, especially paying close attention to all those departments who were in charge ;)

 

"There's not need for concern, ladies and gentlemen, we've detected a fire in the engine room. No cause for concern, the ship's crew will be taking care of everything. Fire crews, emergency response teams, emergency elevator operators, traffic control teams, hotel manager (and others) all report to your stations, please."

 

And....

 

"Hello again, Ladies and Gentlemen, an update for you. We've detected a fire in our engine spaces, in fact, we have a fire in a boiler. Oddly enough, one of those places you'd rather expect some heat. Our fire teams are in place, and we are using an automatic fire suppression system. There's no need for alarm, and I'll keep you informed as the situation progresses."

 

How did the situation progress? ;)

 

Tom

[Pam in CA]

We had something similar happen on the Prinsendam in October. The seven short/one long sounded in all of the cabins just before 2AM. It took me about the 2nd alarm to wake up and realize what the noise was. As they went off, I jumped out of bed, started to throw some clothes on, and was heading to the closet to get my life jacket when the Captain came on the loudspeaker to say that there was a fire in the Lido cooler (an industrial-sized refrigerator) and that a transformer had caused the fire. They had fire teams on site and were putting it out. He told everyone to stay where they were. Five minutes later, the Captain came on the loudspeaker again to say that the fire was out, the electricity to the cooler had been turned off, and that as a safety measure, fire crew would be stationed there until the morning. So, that was our excitement. It was hard to get back to sleep afterwards. :(

[manbehindthecurtain]

We had something similar happen on the Prinsendam in October. The seven short/one long sounded in all of the cabins just before 2AM. It took me about the 2nd alarm to wake up and realize what the noise was. As they went off, I jumped out of bed, started to throw some clothes on, and was heading to the closet to get my life jacket when the Captain came on the loudspeaker to say that there was a fire in the Lido cooler (an industrial-sized refrigerator) and that a transformer had caused the fire. They had fire teams on site and were putting it out. He told everyone to stay where they were. Five minutes later, the Captain came on the loudspeaker again to say that the fire was out, the electricity to the cooler had been turned off, and that as a safety measure, fire crew would be stationed there until the morning. So, that was our excitement. It was hard to get back to sleep afterwards. :(

 

Are you sure you heard 7 short-one long? Typically the fire alarm is a signal that is short-long, short-long, short-long (at least 3 times) on the same alarm bells

[Krazy Kruizers]

Several times we have been on HAL ships when there were fires in the Silos.

 

Also had a fire in the Lido once.

[jtl513]

Think it is interesting how he says it is live and he is blogging live and then the final word is :

 

PS. I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

How could he be sleeping and blogging live and knowing that he went back to sleep?

 

Sounds phony.

 

Tom

No, he said "SWWBO" rolled over and went back to sleep. SWWBO means "She Who Will Be Obeyed" :)

[PathfinderEss]

Ships the size of Eurodam - and larger - experience one or two fires every week.

 

In short - not a big deal.

Wow I didn't know that, interesting.......never had it happen on any of our cruises.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

To me this would be a normal / commen occurance. Now I can say it has not happened in the last 4 cruises but in 2006 and 2007 it seemed about 4 or 5 cruises in a row we would be awaken between 3 AM and 5 AM for a fire. All of which were extremely minor but the Captain was wanting to make sure he kept his passenger aware in case something did get out of hand. Now that I think if it I am actually surprised that we have not had it occur recently:)

[BalconyBumz]

Glad to hear it's nothing serious. We were thinking of maybe booking her in the future, but with all the negative reviews, I'm a little nervous. There are just so many negative things said. I can't imagine Holland America being that bad.

[Copper10-8]

HAL crews practise fire fighting responses all the time! We saw such a drill just last week on Veendam. It should be reassuring to know that all HAL Bridge personnel attend a professional fire fighting school in either the U.S. or Holland as part of their training and qualifications. Fire is probably the biggest danger a captain and crew will face on a ship and I am a firm belieer that HAL crews are prepared to deal with it. I'd much rather have a captain sound the alarm in the middle of the night as a precaution, giving you some time to get your stuff together just in case of, then to wait until a muster on deck is absolutely necessary.

 

Another reason to pay attention for all of 20-25 min. during the mandatory lifeboat drill, know where your lifeboat station is as well as the quickest route to get there:cool:

[Moriah]

I was attending a seminar in the Vista Lounge on Noordam with about 500 participants when the alarm and subsequent announcements informed us of a fire. We were instructed that there was nothing for guests to do except that we should NOT go down to deck "C". Previously I had been unaware of the existence of deck "C" and learned later it is "Crew Deck". They made announcements every several minutes, interrupting our seminar of course and for some reason it had us all in stitches. (I know, strange senses of humor) The funny thing was our speaker joked that they were making awfully loud and serious sounding announcements for what was probably a wastebasket fire, and we found out later, that's exactly what it had been. And the crew member responsible was reportedly put off at the next port. I felt bad for him, but it really was dangerous. This may just be rumor but it was said he fell asleep with a lit cigarette.

[Pam in CA]

Are you sure you heard 7 short-one long? Typically the fire alarm is a signal that is short-long, short-long, short-long (at least 3 times) on the same alarm bells

It was definitely 7 short, one long. I woke up with the first alarm, realized what was happening with the second and counted them. The first seven were the same length.

[iflyrc5]

During our Repo cruise on the Zuiderdam in Spring 07 we had a fire alarm at 2am on the first night out. They set off the alarm and then in about 2 minutes came on the PA saying they were checking it out. About 3 minutes later the Captain came on the PA and said the problem was the door on the incenerator (most all trash is burned) did not fully close and the smoke set off the smoke alarm. When they set off the alarm all the emergency lights in the passageways came on and we also had a bright flashing light in the cabin. Only fire we have had announced during any of our cruises.

[Robin7]

We had a fire alarm while waiting to go ashore in Burnie, Tasmania, onboard the Volendam last week. The queue was really long and moving very slowly. (They had had to move the gangway up so it had been closed for a while, and the line had gotten quite long.) Suddenly, we heard eleven short blasts. My MIL and I looked at each other and I said, "Well, at least it wasn't seven short and one long blast." Then the security and other crew working the gangway came bounding by, one shouted "Fire alarm!", and they all went tearing down the stairs. That's when I figured it was serious.

 

The Captain came on the loudspeaker to say it was not a drill and there was smoke reported in the aft boiler room. (I swear he said 'boiler room'.) A minute or two later, he came back on and said, "The aft fire doors will be closing." Or whatever it is they're called. (At that point I became very sad that I had not grabbed my iPod, as all our photos were backed up on it. Heh. Our stateroom was all the way in the aft on Deck 7.)

 

Before we could 'evacuate' the ship, he came back on and said it was a false alarm. Thank goodness! That line was moving so slowly, if it had been a fire, we all wouldn't have made it off. :D

 

Robin

[topspot]

Don't know if this is true on cruise ships, but as the safety officer in the medical facility where I work, fire drills are done routinely. They are done an all shifts, day and night because everyone must be prepared if a fire should occur. No one announces "this is a drill", we just do what we should , prepare to evacuate, and wait for the all clear signal, or evacuate signal. Happily we have never had a fire, but we sure know what to do.:)

[Drico]

 

Sometimes it is a passenger with a candle or an iron

 

 

Interesting. I have never heard of a fire on a cruise ship that was started by a candle or an iron. I do remember the fire on the Star Princess was thought to have been caused by a pasasenger throwing a cigarette onto another balcony, but I don't know if that was proven or not.

[Pepicou]

It should be reassuring to know that all HAL Bridge personnel attend a professional fire fighting school in either the U.S. or Holland as part of their training and qualifications.

As part of our training the Officers and fire team members have to undertake basic through to advanced firefighting courses ashore before joining a ship. We then have a fire drill every single week and we often get additional training ashore for the day whilst we are onboard (there is a fire training center in Juneau, Alaska we use for example). So yes, we are very well prepared for any fire related incidents, which whilst they do occur, are in 99% of cases very very minor.

 

Another reason to pay attention for all of 20-25 min. during the mandatory lifeboat drill, know where your lifeboat station is as well as the quickest route to get there:cool:

 

Well said!!

[Bill S]

A few years ago, while on the Statendam, on the first evening of the cruise, the fire alarm went off--six short blasts --- no seventh blast--the CD was on the stage and she said, "That's a fire alarm!" A minute or two later we were directed to leave the theater, then after the lights went out, we were told to go to our cabins. Crew in firefighting gear were in the hallways taking fire extinguishers out of cabinets and smoke was in our hallway up on the Navigation Deck. It was the real deal. :eek:

Long story made short: the fire was in the electrical distribution panel causing complete power failure and loss of propulsion, with only an emergency generator to provide power for really essential items. We were adrift at night until 3 tugs came out from Vancouver. We had to be towed back to Vancouver and the next day the cruise was cancelled. :(

From then on, we always check for the nearest fire extinguishers to our cabin and really pay attention at the muster drills. It can happen!

[Copper10-8]

As part of our training the Officers and fire team members have to undertake basic through to advanced firefighting courses ashore before joining a ship. We then have a fire drill every single week and we often get additional training ashore for the day whilst we are onboard (there is a fire training center in Juneau, Alaska we use for example). So yes, we are very well prepared for any fire related incidents, which whilst they do occur, are in 99% of cases very very minor.

 

 

 

Well said!!

 

I've seen you guys at work more than once during those drills plus I know wearing those turnout coats & pants, helmet, hood, boots, SCBA mask and tank on your back and then operating in those conditions in a very hot and claustrophobic environment is no day at the beach! My hat is off to you guys!

[Luv4dacruise]

A few years ago, while on the Statendam, on the first evening of the cruise, the fire alarm went off--six short blasts --- no seventh blast--the CD was on the stage and she said, "That's a fire alarm!" A minute or two later we were directed to leave the theater, then after the lights went out, we were told to go to our cabins. Crew in firefighting gear were in the hallways taking fire extinguishers out of cabinets and smoke was in our hallway up on the Navigation Deck. It was the real deal. :eek:

Long story made short: the fire was in the electrical distribution panel causing complete power failure and loss of propulsion, with only an emergency generator to provide power for really essential items. We were adrift at night until 3 tugs came out from Vancouver. We had to be towed back to Vancouver and the next day the cruise was cancelled. :(

From then on, we always check for the nearest fire extinguishers to our cabin and really pay attention at the muster drills. It can happen!

 

 

Everytime i would go on a cruise with my parents a few years back, my mother and i would wonder why my dad always left the cabin for a few minutes right after we walked in and dropped our carry-ons. Well, i asked him one day, and turns out, he counts all the doorways in the hall to the nearest emergency exit.

 

I always thought he was weird, but the more i thought about it, it made alot of sense. In a fire, your eyes are pretty much useless, its dark and smoky, so thats why dad use to do it. To be able to feel his way to an emergency exit.

[Copper10-8]

Everytime i would go on a cruise with my parents a few years back, my mother and i would wonder why my dad always left the cabin for a few minutes right after we walked in and dropped our carry-ons. Well, i asked him one day, and turns out, he counts all the doorways in the hall to the nearest emergency exit.

 

I always thought he was weird, but the more i thought about it, it made alot of sense. In a fire, your eyes are pretty much useless, its dark and smoky, so thats why dad use to do it. To be able to feel his way to an emergency exit.

 

Your dad, no doubt, had his stuff together and knew the importance of being prepared! More power to him! You can actually do the same thing in commecial aircraft and that is, count the seats in between your seat and the nearest emergency exit. When the aircraft or the ship's corridors fill with smoke, the only way to exit is to go down on your hands and knees and crawl

What cruise ship and commercial aircraft now all have and what has made this whle thing easier is emergency floor lighting. Follow the yellow lights which lead to red lights which lead to emergency (or routine) exits

It pays to be prepared:)