Donning respirators and heavy, protective jackets and pants, crews are preparing to extinguish a blaze on a boat docked in Burrard Inlet.
It’s a task that comes with a long manifest of dangers.
“It’s not just fire, it’s confined spaces we have to deal with,” said Dwayne Higgins, rescue safety lead for shipbuilder Seaspan.
“How do we get to those fires? How do we get to our people? How do we extinguish those fires? How do we get our hose lines down there?”
Fortunately, today is only a dry run of a disaster on the water, using what Seaspan says is training coming to the West Coast for the first time.
It’s a modular tugboat, on dry land, helping train crews to fight a fire on a boat.
The vessel looks a bit like a stack of containers on top of a small boat hull.
Gas fixtures blast flames and billow smoke. Steep staircases and narrow halls, along with jutting-out pipes, make movement a challenge.
Rough metal furniture resembles a ship’s diesel engine — and even a galley or kitchen — prime places for flames to erupt.
The faux tugboat sits on land at the District of North Vancouver’s Maplewood Fire Centre.
There, municipal fire crews and Seaspan workers are getting a taste of what a boat fire in the harbour waters could throw at them.
“It’s not just about training,” said Higgins.
“It’s about understanding how a vessel operates, what’s in a vessel, what obstacles we’re faced with and how are we going to deal with them.”
North Vancouver firefighters are welcoming the simulator as a valuable tool to help improve safety on the Burrard Inlet’s busy waterfront — a waterfront likely to only get busier in the future.
This tugboat is giving B.C. crews hands-on experience fighting marine fires
The mock tugboat — christened Seaspan Responder — has been in the works for four years, Higgins said, and the company paid $800,000 to build it.
Recent months have seen responders come aboard to gain their sea legs on it. CBC News was granted an exclusive look at that training Monday.
Monday saw volunteer shipbuilders, not career firefighters, taking a turn. Higgins described these tradespeople as a first line of defense should a fire erupt.
As they gathered in their gear outside the boat, Higgins explained the scenario to them: a fire in the ship’s kitchen has been burning for some time. Fire extinguishers didn’t snuff it out, but the flames are contained.
“Are we clear with that?” Higgins asks the assembled crew, drawing nods and affirmatives.
“Okay guys, let’s do what we do.”
A pair of volunteer firefighters approach the heavy metal door with smoke escaping from it. They lay down a line of hoses and then spray down the door.
The water’s reaction, Higgins explains, helps them tell how close the flames are.
“I see some smoke! Let’s open it all the way!” one yells after putting his mask on, and then they beat back bright orange flames with a concentrated spray.
“Advancing!” the lead yells, and they run closer to the inferno. Both kneel, spray more water, and turn the fire to smoke.
Higgins says it wasn’t a perfect drill, but it let these less-experienced crews learn from their mistakes safely.
“It’s not just about problem-solving. It’s about doing it safely and taking care of each other,” Higgins said.
District of North Vancouver firefighters have also been making use of the prop for their training.
Gunter Kramer, assistant chief of training and professional development, says it’s been a useful tool for improving readiness for a land-based response to boat fires.
He explained that, as it stands, Vancouver Fire and Rescue and their three firefighting boats would be called on to fight a boat fire from the water.
And while Kramer expressed gratitude for Seaspan’s tool, he argues there is more needed to fight fires on the busy Burrard Inlet waterfront that separates Vancouver from the North Shore.
“This is a huge challenge … and we are just in the beginning of getting prepared for that,” Kramer said.
“It’s obviously, financially, it’s a big impact on fire departments.”
Kramer said part of the problem in the Burrard Inlet is the lack of cohesion between so many agencies and governments claiming jurisdiction along the shoreline.
Pointing to Monday’s training, Kramer said having shipbuilders trained to fight fires is valuable as they have the knowledge of what’s going on inside a ship under construction, and shipbuilding is work that could lead to a fire.
Higgins agreed.
“We need to be able to respond quickly, do the best we can with what we have,” he said.
