Engine Room Fire Breaks Out Aboard Reefer Ship Dole Colombia

On Monday, a fire broke out in the engine room aboard a reefer ship at the Port of Wilmington, Delaware. The blaze has been brought under control, according to the local fire department.

On Monday morning, the Wilmington Fire Department received a call reporting a fire on the reefer Dole Colombia at the port's Berth 5. Smoke was coming out of the ship's stacks, and the master reported a fire affecting a generator in the engine room. The department sounded a second alarm to bring in all available units and to ask for assistance from nearby departments.

Courtesy Wilmington Fire Department

The master of the vessel confirmed that the engine room had been sealed up and that the fixed firefighting system had been discharged into the space. All crewmembers were safe and accounted-for, leaving only an incident-monitoring role for the fire department's responders. After a period of checking boundary temperatures and standing by with hoses, the fire department began to stand down the response and return units to their normal duties.

Dole Colombia is an 850-TEU open-top containerized reefer ship, built in 1999 specifically for the fruit trade. She is self-unloading, with specialized adaptations for banana transport. She has single-screw propulsion and five diesel generators to power the large electrical load needed for cooling. Her PSC inspection record is spotless.

It is the second time that Dole Colombia has suffered an engine room fire at the Port of Wilmington. The ship sustained a fire in June 2021 as she was getting under way from the pier, forcing her to return to her berth to combat the blaze. At the time, a Coast Guard spokesperson said that the fire originated in the ship's main engine, and that the fixed firefighting system was used to bring it under control. As tugs were already alongside, the ship had no trouble returning to the pier, and the fire was out before any significant damage to internal compartments.

Last November, another banana ship - Chiquita Voyager - sustained an engine room fire at Port of Wilmington, injuring four crewmembers. The blaze began with a generator and grew quickly. Local firefighters helped evacuate crewmembers, and when all was ready the master activated the fixed firefighting system to bring the fire under control.