The Dutch coast guard confirmed on Wednesday, July 26, that one person was killed and many others were injured in a fire aboard a ship carrying roughly 3,000 cars.
The Burning 'Fremantle Highway'
Several crew members were forced to abandon the 199-meter Fremantle Highway, which was sailing from Germany to Egypt, when a fire broke out on Tuesday night, July 25.
According to Reuters, the burning vessel was doused with water from rescue ships in an effort to put out the flames, but the Dutch coastguard warned that doing so may cause the vessel to sink. It was salvaged by a ship that latched on and stopped it drifting.
"The fire is most definitely still not controlled. It's a very hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting," said Edwin Versteeg, a Dutch Ministry of Waterways and Public Works spokesman.
The coast guard claimed on its website that it did not know what started the fire, although a representative had told Reuters that it started near an electric vehicle.
The Fremantle, which set sail from Bremerhaven, was dragged outside of maritime channels, and the coast guard warned that it may now sink. The blaze broke out around 17 miles (about 27 kilometers) north of the Dutch island of Ameland.
According to Willard Molenaar of the Royal Dutch Rescue Company (KNRM), who was one among the first on the scene, seven crew members jumped overboard as the fire swiftly spread.
Molenaar told Dutch television NOS that one crew member was killed in flames, and many others were hurt when they jumped from the ship's upper decks into the ocean below, Reuters reported. "There was a lot of smoke and the fire spread quickly, much faster than expected ... The people on board had to get off quickly ... We fished them out of the water," he stated.
The remaining members of the ship's crew of 23 were safely removed from the burning vessel by use of an airlift. Authorities in the Netherlands said those wounded were being treated for things like broken bones, burns, and difficulty breathing.
Coast Guard spokesman Edwin Granneman stated that salvage experts were attempting to figure out what to do about the burning vessel.
Japanese ship leasing firm Shoei Kisen, which oversees the Fremantle, said it was coordinating with Dutch authorities to put out the blaze.
Previous Similar Incidents
There have been a series of fires aboard car carriers, and this was the most recent one.
Earlier this month, ABC News reported that a fire broke out on a cargo ship carrying hundreds of automobiles. Two New Jersey firemen were killed, and five were wounded trying to put out the fire.
In February of last year, a fire on a ship off the coast of Portugal's Azores islands wiped off hundreds of high-end automobiles, according to The Guardian.
