Ferry is base for major ‘incident’

Ferry is base for major ‘incident’

25 September 2013

THE Strangford ferry was at the centre of a major emergency services training day on Saturday.

Organised by the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS), the event tested the ability of the emergency services to cope with the unique difficulties of fighting fires on board vessels.

The central exercise of the day-long event was in Strangford where firefighters tackled an imaginary blaze in the engine room of the MV Portaferry, complete with a search for missing crew members.

At the scene lifeboats from Newcastle and Portaferry searched for passengers who had jumped from the ferry and members of South Down and Portaferry Coastguard teams combed the shore for survivors and helped ‘rescue’ people from the water.

The Strangford harbour master and crew of the MW Portaferry were also involved.

The two-hour exercise was the practical end to a day which was specifically intended to train firefighters on the problems and complexities of tackling emergency incidents on board vessels.

The day began in the Kilmorey Arms Hotel in Kilkeel where a member of the NIFRS Marine Rescue Team gave a briefing to firefighters from Downpatrick, Newcastle and Kilkeel.

The group then moved to the harbour in Kilkeel where members of South Down Coastguard team gave them a tour around a trawler and a dredger, explaining the firefighting capabilities available on board and the problems which may encounter firefighters trying to tackle a blaze.

From Kilkeel the focus of the exercise moved to Strangford where firefighters, wearing breathing apparatus ‘fought’ the blaze on the ferry and ‘rescued’ victims on board.

Labelled Exercise Ferryman, the scenario involved a fire in the engine room of the ferry which then limps back to harbour. Three crew members are missing and a number of passengers are in the water.

Wearing breathing apparatus, the firefighters who boarded the vessel carried out a search of the smoke-filled engine room and located the three crew members.

Meanwhile, members of the NIFRS Specialist Rescue Team from Belfast played the part of passengers who had escaped overboard and who were rescued by the RNLI crews. Coastguard teams were deployed to carry out a shoreline search and rescued other victims using throw lines.

James McAllister, the NIFRS District Commander for Downpatrick, said the exercise had a threefold aim — to test the deployment of the NIFRS to firefighting on ships, interagency working and test the MV Portaferry’s own emergency response procedures.

“Overall the exercise was a success and all participants will have gone away having been pleased with their efforts but also with a number of learning outcomes,” said Mr. McAllister.

“The point of such exercises from the Fire Service point of view is to simulate such emergencies in as realistic a way as possible in order to expose crews to the dangers involved in a controlled manner thus preparing them for the real event should they be faced with it,” he added.

“We are grateful for the co-operation of the Coastguard, RNLI crews, Strangford harbour master and the crew of the ferry.”