How Do They Fight A Fire On A Massive Cruise Ship? 

agreed at first i thought it was going to be the same old story

Excellent point, I too would love to see more anti-horror stories like this, where it focuses on how modern systems have saved the day, rather than lessons being learnt the hard way

@@FPVsean things go wrong all the time on cruise ships, we never hear this because the crews do such a good job

@@FPVsean have a look at the air traffic control channels here on RU-vid. The videos are virtually all about emergency or near emergency situations that are managed and dealt with.

Some people have never watched the Futurama episode where Bender meets God and it shows.

Just the person who either left their cigarette unattended outside, or worse threw it off a balcony thinking: "It's fiiiiine! It'll just go in the water", not only polluting but also ignoring the fact that the wind and draft could well bring it back onto the boat.

And illustrates even when doing everything correctly things can go very bad. (Even though in this case it was all fine it probully didn't look like it at some points)

@@arthanor9631 Typical smoker behaviour. I despise them. Too weak to quit, too weak to properly care for others, throwing away their trash everywhere. We just had a fire in the backyard of our company. Why? Because smokers hadn't properly extinguished their cigarette butt.

@@arthanor9631 so true that person is the sole dumbass in this situation

@Arthanor These kinds of incidents always reminds me of why I quit smoking when I was in my early 20's. It's not only bad for your overall health, but it also, will destroy others lives and properties indirectly, if you don't do it properly with care. Its more than usually comes down to our own errors and neglected behavior, be that good or bad. It's something we all must learn from not to repeat, even if we make a habit of out, in my eyes.

As someone who helps design them, it’s even more satisfying to hear when these systems do their job and save lives.

I agree, it's always wonderful to hear that the crew response was so orderly and immediate. Great crew training and great overall teamwork. Even in a case where some saftey systems failed, leading to a rapid and large fire growth, it was beaten with precision and planning. Captain and firecrews did their jobs perfectly.

Examples are few and far between.

Good captain and crew is all the difference

Super satisfying.

This is my chief worry on a ship. The bulk of the crew is notoriously underpaid workers from 3rd world countries with high turnover rate.They could have just thrown in the towel and quit. Kudos to them for being professional.

It's also worth adding that Hi-Fog and other water mist systems are still very conservative on water usage -- it's a fraction when compared to the classic "shopping mall" sprinklers. To bring the numbers, I just found in the official report on the investigation of the fire on Star Princess: "During the fire on 23 March 2006, an estimated 168 water mist heads were activated, and were kept running for over 4 hours in order to cool the fire-affected areas. The water mist maintained a barrier against the fire at a system pressure of about 48 Bar, with 2 pump units running in automatic mode and the third manually controlled to boost pressure. The water mist system used about 300 tonnes of fresh water over 3 decks and 3 fire zones during the 4 hour operating period." BTW, if anyone wonders why the system cannot use salty water, the answer is simple: corrosion. This kind of fire suppression systems is called 'wet', because the water is constantly under stand-by pressure in the pipes, and starts flowing immediately after the heat-resistant bulb is broken. Then, if water pressure goes down, pumps start to kick in, bringing the system into operational high pressure mode. Having salty water there all the time would end the life of such a system rather quickly

@@tpwo to add another thing about salty water, the main issue is not corrosion. If I take exemple of my current place of work, I’m in a ferry boat that carry both cars and passenger. The garage decks are protected by Drencher systems, which are basically your average mall fire system, using salty water, while the passenger areas are under highfog protection, with clear water. While corrosion act differently between the Drencher system that is never under pressure, and activated by pumps, and the Highfog being under constant pressure (a few bars when static, and when activated, the pumps get the system to dozen of bars), the main issue is, because the Highfog create a mist, the mouth of the Highfog system are really, really small, and under really high pressure. If the water was salty, it could create a risk of the salt in dissolved in the water to reform as a solid and block the opening, thus rendering the Highfog system unusable. But, I have to had that those Drencher systems are also prone to corrosion and often are emptied from the salty water and cleaned/treated which some chemicals. The reason Highfog are not used in the garages is because the roof is pretty high (about 5 meters at least-15 feet) and the mist would become to thin to actually be usefull in such large volumes, so Drenchers are most effective.

@@tpwo Could the Hi-Fog system be rigged to allow salt water to be pumped in if necessary? It would require considerable flushing and refitting after use and would increase the risk of blockage, but is probably still better than running out of water in a very large or long fire, and it wouldn't be sitting in the system during regular standby

might be a silly question but does that much water, pressurized and misted causing breathing issues for anyone in the area?

@@Septimus_ii most hi-fog units I have seen have a manual valve which can be opened to use sea water fed from the fire pumps. This is only used once the potable water supply has been used or if there is no suction from these tanks.

In Appartements there are no fire suppression systems anyway? Modern ones have smoke detectors... But older ones have nothing.

@@arnoldhau1 I lived in apartments in two states for most of 20 years and never lacked smoke detectors. In my most recent apartment, which was built about ten years ago, there was a sprinkler system.

At least firefighters on the outside have a good chance of being able to put it out from the outside!

@@arnoldhau1 It depends on when the apartment was built.

@@arnoldhau1 At least in my state, all apartments have to have smoke detectors, regardless of age or size. It's sprinklers that are the "only newer buildings" issue (since it's hard to retrofit into an older building.)

It’s good to know, really: cruise ship fires are depressingly common.

One died?? Why didn’t the video mention that? Crew or guest? How?

@@suzanne5971 it was a guest, and if I recall correctly it was an older guest who had a heart attack during the evacuation.

I'm very curious to know what an "ideal marine disaster" looks like.

@@generalcatkaa5864 One that starts in port I guess.

unless they're telling you "everything's fine stay in your room" while your room is 90 degrees on its side

That didn’t work for the unfortunate students on the ferry Sewol in Korea, as recently as 2014. Everyone from the crew to the rescue services to the government were negligent and hundreds of lives were unnecessarily lost. Brick Immortar has made a heartbreaking documentary about it here on RU-vid.

Actually that's a thing for every developments, really. At least when they're done seriously and it might even be the basis of engineering. Problem X is identified and acknowledged, with or without disaster, then solutions are researched and applied against problem X, then repeat with new problems that arise.

So a crew member who isn't supposed to be in charge of training is running the training because the actual crew member is so incompetent at his job you can outperform him using short RU-vid videos as your learning resource... Please never let me sail on a ship with you

@@mattd6085 They aren't really incompetent. It's more of...they're *too* by the book. They have a list of standard trainings and they do them that way every single time. i.e. fire trainin drills are always inside a cabin, never a balcony or public space. We *always* use lifeboat 4 when practicing launching a lifeboat, never any other lifeboat. We only practice on wednesdays in the middle of the month. All of that is detailed in the training guide as example or base-line training, but he makes us do those every single time. That fire drill isn't effective if we have a fire like this one, or something happens on the pool deck. However, by watching these videos and knowing what to look out for, I have made more dynamically challenging training drills. Like a spreading fire that starts on the pool deck. Or launching all the lifeboats on one side of the ship. Dynamic drills, that change frequently and have lots of varying scenarios, are 1000x more effective in training people for *actual* events that could occur. For example, having watched the video about the Andrea Doria and the rescue efforts involved, I've actually made a plan to use the inflatable life rafts (as mentioned in the Lifeboats video) as a sort of drop off point, allowing those to be launched, then lifeboats to ferry passengers to those then come back, so should we end up in a similar incident, and are afforded enough time, there's some way to evac alone. So actually, by sailing with me, you are much safer than with a crew trained by my colleague.

​@@katherynedarrah4245You used to launch only one lifeboat during boat drills? We launched all of them at least once a month. 😳 Anyway, it does sound like you're doing a very good thing. Keep it up!

oho, kogo ja widzę :D

@@LexanderStudio o, siemano Alex! Internet jest mniejszy niż nam się zdaje :D

Always so heartening to hear stories of bystanders coming to help

I love how staggeringly low tech it is. Very elegant.

@@ibalrogindeed the idea is very simple and elegant, but actually producing a sprinkler with the nozzle geometry that will create a water mist with the correct droplet size requires really precise machinery. Also, operational pressures are really high, so you have to make a lot of design decisions with that in mind. So, a simple idea with a lot of R&D behind the actual product ;-)

@@ibalrog less things to go wrong. That's better

I suspect it may be deliberate with those temperatures. I only say this because I would be seriously tempted to turn sprinklers on in that kind of heat, I don't think poorly of QE's welders.

I remember switching the Hi-Fog to Manual in areas during hot work...

Seconded. I didn't know that about RU-vid on TVs, but videos just seem a lot more professional when there's a bit of an outro. It doesn't have to be a pitch for likes and subs; it can just be "I hope you found this video interesting, and thanks for watching." If you want a laugh, go watch the last few seconds of a video from the channel "Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't."

Why wouldn't you go on one?

@@ano_nym maybe just a general fear of being on the open water, thats the case with most people 🤷‍♂️

@@momoy9159 Or the exorbitant price which most of us can't afford.

Yep. My Dad was on a U.S. Navy avgas tanker during WW2 and their fire training was intense.

Was in the navy and you are correct about that. Never forget the first day of training.

Damage control training for all hands was one advantage the U.S. Navy had over the Imperial Japanese Navy during WW2.

Very few. Most maritime laws are written in blood.

A passenger did die from smoke inhalation in this fire and 13 more were injured from the same cause.

None of them, but unfortunately people don't pay attention to a problem unless people die.

Are you confusing zombie apocalypses and shipboard fires? Just checking.

@@beeble2003 Either. There are no tragedies, only opportunities!

Sadly there was one death and 11 injuries. But I do agree that it sounds like the crew performed admirably and basically everything worked as it should.

@@jedimasterpickle3 oh I didn't notice that. Still that's remarkably low all things considered

@@trentr9762 Agreed. And I only knew this because I googled this right after watching the video.

oh I remember that one too

Strange I was cruising on the Emerald princess on the way from South Hampton when a engine caught fire. It was put out in about 40min. The captain said it was something to do with oil spilling on the engine. We continued the journey on three engines. Strange it was the same ship