BOAT FIRE IN CHARLESTON MARINA
Monday September 9 2009
We had a little bit of excitement today due to a 22 foot pleasure boat catching on fire in the marina. Thought I would let everyone know how it happened and to avoid a situation like this in the future if your a boater.
Evidently this pleasure boat had just filled up with gas at the fueling station, apparently knew he had a possible gas leak somewhere and the following events led up to the fire. The gas tank was below the deck and evidently between the possible leak in his fuel system and the exhaust gas fumes from filling his gas tank not being cleared yet caused a pending disaster. The captain started his electric bilge pump, or it may have came on automatically, which caused a spark to ignite the gas in the fuel compartment of the boat. The boat blew up and threw the captain into the bay and evidently at the same time his wife was down below the deck and she had run through the burning boat to jump off. Thanks to the Coast Guard, Fire Department and good Samaritans the couple were pulled from the water. Although they both sustained burns they were definitely lucky not too loose there lives.
To make things worse the boat was now stating to drift across a small channel from the fueling station into the dock where fishing & pleasure boats are docked to the south. Quick thinking by another boater that was real close to the burning boat managed to drag the boat away from the dock, which would probably have taken out other boats as well as the potential of more people getting hurt. However, as you will note in the pictures the boat was fully engulfed.
There was another problem since the tide was moving back in it was pushing the burning boat up further into South Slew. It was a pretty intense situation for a while and it took the Coast Guard almost an hour to extinguish the fire. Even though the boat was almost submerged it was burning quite intensely. The dense smoke in the early stages of the fire was pretty black in color with a strong order of burning fiber glass and rubber.
The Coast Guard finally got the boat to sink and they felt it was in deep enough water that it would not cause any problems for other boats that use this channel.
Monday September 9 2009
We had a little bit of excitement today due to a 22 foot pleasure boat catching on fire in the marina. Thought I would let everyone know how it happened and to avoid a situation like this in the future if your a boater.
Evidently this pleasure boat had just filled up with gas at the fueling station, apparently knew he had a possible gas leak somewhere and the following events led up to the fire. The gas tank was below the deck and evidently between the possible leak in his fuel system and the exhaust gas fumes from filling his gas tank not being cleared yet caused a pending disaster. The captain started his electric bilge pump, or it may have came on automatically, which caused a spark to ignite the gas in the fuel compartment of the boat. The boat blew up and threw the captain into the bay and evidently at the same time his wife was down below the deck and she had run through the burning boat to jump off. Thanks to the Coast Guard, Fire Department and good Samaritans the couple were pulled from the water. Although they both sustained burns they were definitely lucky not too loose there lives.
To make things worse the boat was now stating to drift across a small channel from the fueling station into the dock where fishing & pleasure boats are docked to the south. Quick thinking by another boater that was real close to the burning boat managed to drag the boat away from the dock, which would probably have taken out other boats as well as the potential of more people getting hurt. However, as you will note in the pictures the boat was fully engulfed.
There was another problem since the tide was moving back in it was pushing the burning boat up further into South Slew. It was a pretty intense situation for a while and it took the Coast Guard almost an hour to extinguish the fire. Even though the boat was almost submerged it was burning quite intensely. The dense smoke in the early stages of the fire was pretty black in color with a strong order of burning fiber glass and rubber.
The Coast Guard finally got the boat to sink and they felt it was in deep enough water that it would not cause any problems for other boats that use this channel.
