On Sun, 30 May 2021 08:40:42 +0100, "Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)"
wrote:

Yes certainly container ships do have fires but most are extinguished by the
on board systems pretty fas. I can only assume that in this case it was one
of those perfect storm occasions where everything was stacked in favour of
mayhem.

I believe it was.

Unfortunately in the world as it is with complex needs of cargo, eventually
mistakes will occur,

The suggestion is most of these 'mistakes' are actually people trying
to get away with shipping stuff cheaply that would cost more because
it requires 'special attention' and not declaring it accurately.

but really in this case surely the containment system
should not have been allowed to flood a sealed area with flammable gas, it
should have been vented overboard.

They suggested it's often not possible to extinguish a fire within a
container that is producing it's own oxygen because it remains sealed
and so no access by water or a oxygen excluding gas.

I believe the hydrogen that was produced by the overheated PVC was
vented into the other flames and the exploding container blew others
apart and into the sea.

Cheers, T i m