USQUE AD MARE
A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton

Fire

Of all disasters which can happen to a ship, fire is the most terrible. On shore, the occupants of burning buildings can hope for rescue by fire truck and ladder which may arrive within minutes of the first alarm; a ship at sea, on the other hand, must be self contained in firefighting as in all things and, from the first warning of fire until the last desperate retreat or victory, there may be no chance of escape by boat if the weather is bad.

In the days of sail, the only flame in the ship was in oil lamps or in the galley; in merchant ships the latter was usually a small box-like structure in the waist containing a coal burning range. In case of accidental fire the cook, or a burning pan, could be removed without difficulty and a few buckets of sea water would do the rest. The main risk to a sailing ship lay in spontaneous combustion of the cargo, particularly coal, cotton and jute when the treatment was to cut off all ventilation and hope for the best. One of the finest sea stories in the English language, Youth by Joseph Conrad, tells of the ordeal of a wooden barque which smouldered for weeks before her cargo of coal erupted and blew the decks and masts from the charred hull.

With the coming of steam, the danger was greatly increased and numerous tragedies occurred in Canada, as elsewhere, from an almost total lack of knowledge as to causes and prevention. While the various steamboat acts called for pumps and fire buckets, the construction of most vessels was such that, even in iron or steel steamers until quite recently, the use of wood decks and minor bulkheads, combustible paints and furnishing, and the presence of long alleyways and staircases which acted as chimneys, practically guaranteed that any fire, once started, would sweep the vessel with the explosive force of a blowtorch.

In some ways, a ship in port is more vulnerable to fire than when at sea. If working cargo, there is always the danger of someone starting a fire by careless smoking in the holds or elsewhere and, if under refit or repair, the presence of numerous electric cables for welding is a hazard at a time when normal shipboard routine is suspended in favour of the work in hand. Under all operating conditions a modern ship is a maze of powered arteries of one kind or another; some ships, such as tankers, work under risks which require special safeguards.

Successful ship firefighting depends on the discipline and training of the crew to a standard which is sometimes difficult to attain in merchant ships. In this respect they are but floating industrial or residential units manned, in some cases, by temporary or casual employees.

The first important discussion on ship fires took place at the 1914 Convention, partly because of the burning of the Italian emigrant ship Volturno with the loss of 136 lives in mid Atlantic, which had taken place the previous year. The 1929 Convention ratified and improved the proposals of 1914 by requiring the provision of fire resistant bulkheads in passenger accommodation. National regulations were developed from these standards, but a series of disastrous ship fires in the thirties showed that they were inadequate. The loss of two French liners, the Georges Philippar with 40 deaths in 1932 and l'Atlantique with 18 casualties in January 1934, were but a prelude to the holocaust of September 8, 1934 when the United States liner Morro Castle burned out, in sight of the New Jersey coast, with the loss of 137 passengers and crew.

The Morro Castle, a turbo-electric liner then only four years old, was considered to be the finest and most luxurious vessel in the American coastwise passenger service, and had been built to the standards of the 1929 Convention. However, as was the custom in all ships of the period, highly combustible linings and furnishings in the cabins and public spaces outweighed the advantages of the fire resistant partitions and doors required by the Convention, and the vessel was swept remorselessly when fire was detected in the writing room. Some people were burned to death in their cabins, some escaped by boat, and a few actually swam to shore, a distance of eight miles.

By time that the 1948 Convention was held, these events had led to a technical study of fire in ships, and rules were drafted for structural fire protection and for firefighting equipment; alarm and detection systems, by now in common use in the building industry, were adapted for vessels and, to ensure that these were effective, fire patrols by the crew were advocated. However, before these rules could be ratified, another disastrous ship fire occurred, this time in Canada. Although Canada had been a signatory to the 1929 Convention and had used the standards then agreed for Convention passenger ships, there was no parallel enforcement in domestic vessels, of which a considerable number were in summer services on the Lakes and as ferries elsewhere.

SS Noronic shortly after her building in 1913.

(Notman Archives)

On September 16, 1949, the cruise ship Noronic arrived at Toronto for a stay of one night while on a seven day excursion from Detroit to the Thousand Islands and return. There were 524 passengers on board, all from the United States, and a crew of 171, a total complement within the limits allowed by the Department of Transport under certificate as "Inland Steamship Class 1". The vessel had been running without incident since she was built in 1913 but was one of a group of three which had become outdated. Of her two sisters, the Huronic had been laid up and the Hamonic, providing what ought to have been a timely warning, had been burned to destruction when caught in a dock fire at Point Edward, Ontario, in 1945, fortunately without loss of life. The war had finished, ships were still in short supply and the tourist trade was booming.

Early in the morning of the 17^th, fire was discovered in a small linen room of the Noronic and the alarm was raised by a passenger who called on the head bellboy to alert the ship's staff. The cause of fire was never ascertained with certainty but it spread with lightning rapidity, flashing through the long corridors of accommodation with tremendous heat which asphyxiated many of the guests as they lay asleep in their cabins. By morning the ship was gutted, 104 passengers were known to be dead and 14 were missing; the smoking remains of a well known Canadian steamer lay abandoned on the bottom of the harbour where, filled up to the sinking point by the hoses of the Toronto Fire Department, she had settled in that night of horror.

A formal investigation in accordance with the Canada Shipping Act was held at Toronto later in the same month; with Mr. Justice Kellog as commissioner and three assessors in attendance, hearings lasted from September 28 until November 21 when a report was presented to the Minister in Ottawa.

The loss of the Noronic was found to have been due to failure of the master and owners to provide a continuous patrol for the purpose of fire detection, failure to have an efficient firefighting organization, failure in fact to have contemplated the possibility of fire occurring whilst in harbour and, the fire having happened, failure to have a plan for evacuating the passengers when alongside.

In handing down the findings of the inquiry, the commissioner and his assessors made eight recommendations for consideration in ships carrying more than a minimum of passengers. Chief among these were that the provisions of the Convention with regard to fire resistant bulkheads, continuous fire patrols and the assignment of special firefighting duties in the crew, should be made applicable to inland water ships. If Lord Mersey's findings in the Titanic disaster had struck deeply at the British Board of Trade and then state of safety legislation, the report of Mr. Justice Kellog on the Noronic fire marked the beginning of a new phase in steamship inspection and the standards of Canadian marine regulations for protection against fire.

As a result of this report stringent regulations, applying to both new and existing ships, came into force in 1950. They went beyond the requirements of the 1948 Convention in some respects and a number of existing Canadian passenger ships were either modified or withdrawn from service in consequence.

In recent years, serious fires have again occurred in foreign ships, some of them being reasonably modern vessels, and attention has been focused on deficiencies now apparent in all but the very latest designs. Once more some Canadian vessels were found to be deficient in one way or another, and they were required to be modified or, if beyond economic modernization, to be laid up.

The inland water passenger ships of Canada were wonderful vessels in their way, and much sentiment attended on their passing. But the truth is that protection against fire must now be designed into a ship long before the vessel is laid down and, at long last, the cycle of disaster, investigation and reform has, for once, been broken. Be it to be the credit of the Canadian steamship inspection service that, before the tragic fire of the Panamanian steamer Yarmouth Castle had occurred in 1966, the last of the old style Canadian holiday ships had been refused a certificate. Risley and Smith could have asked no more.