Burned-out car carrier under tow as fire subsides
The car carrier Fremantle Highway, which caught fire off the Dutch coast last week while carrying 3,000 vehicles, is now under tow after the fire began to subside this weekend.
The fire, which began on Tuesday (25 July 2023), has been burning for almost a week aboard the 199-metre Fremantle Highway, a Panama-registered vehicle carrier built in 2013. One crew member was killed and several others injured after reportedly attempting to bring the blaze under control.
Fremantle Highway departed the port of Bremerhaven in Germany, and was en route to Egypt when it caught fire. It is suspected that an electric car in the cargo was the cause of the fire.
The coastguard initially reported that around 25 electric vehicles were on board. However, this figure has been confirmed at closer to 500 electric vehicles.
The burning car carrier Fremantle Highway drifting off the Dutch coast has almost 500 electric vehicles, significantly more than the 25 earlier reported by the coastguard https://t.co/x10JhqDG76 pic.twitter.com/3r5ipgAb9C
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 29, 2023
The ship was initially towed out of shipping lanes but remained worryingly close to Ameland, one of four ecologically sensitive Frisian islands in an archipelago just north of the Dutch mainland, in the Waddensee area.
A salvage team attempted to board the ship on Thursday (27 July 2023), but this was aborted due to the high temperatures aboard the vessel.
Despite the fire continuing to burn, temperatures had fallen enough by Friday (28 July 2023) to allow the team to board and establish a connection to a salvage vessel. By Sunday afternoon, the smoke had subsided enough to allow the towage operation to commence.
De slepers van de brandende Fremantle Highway zijn goed opgeschoten en naderen het ankergebied boven Schiermonnikoog. Draadje. pic.twitter.com/ZKLylp0y3B
— Irene Overduin (@Ireneov) July 31, 2023
Dutch authorities have confirmed the ship will now be towed to a temporary location some 16 km north of Schiermonnikoog. This journey is expected to be completed today (31 July 2023).
The tow of the Fremantle Highway is being done at approximately 3 knots by two tugs, and an oil control vessel Arca is in the vicinity in case any oil pollution occurs.
The towing operation comes as a relief for the Wadden Islands, which are a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of the largest tidal flats systems in the world.
Fires on car-carrying ships are increasingly the source of major losses, insurers say. In 2022, the Felicity Ace sank off the coast of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean with some 4,000 vehicles on board.
Lithium Ion Batteries installed in vehicles and recreational toys are becoming an increasing fire risk on ships and yachts. Recently a Princess yacht burned in Key West Florida, taking the owner’s wife and pet dog. This was due to a charging E bike battery catching fire. A friend recently encountered a battery fire from a charging yacht toy in the engine room of his yacht. He was able to extinguish it before disaster. This is now the second car carrier I am aware of that has caught fire. The Felicity Ace sank in March 2022. It cannot be determined what caused the fire but there were a number of electric vehicles on board and a battery fire is suspected. In June this year the MCA issued new guidelines on the handling of Lithium Ion batteries after a spate of yacht fires. The insurance industry is taking note. A thorough investigation is necessary and the salvage of Freemantle Highway will allow this. Regulation of this potentially dangerous cargo must be forthcoming.
These electric vehicles are the potentially worst disaster slowly unravelling as it is the most immoral thing manufactured ion the planet. The lithium is sourced using slave labour and the batteries are an environmental disaster which no-one wants or talks about. Yet the people who drive these horrible things sit there smugly as though they are saving the planet, yet in fact they are killing it. Instead of these electric cars which are supposed to reduce CO2 when in fact their actual manufacture increases it, then thought should be given to cleaning up the oceans which is a real environmental hazard far greater than CO2 emissions.