Enhancing the fire safety onboard container ship cargo area: a barrier analysis method

The catastrophic impact of container ship fires on socio-economic aspects is devastating, and the subsequent steps taken have been insufficient to address the consequences. The risk control options proposed by EMSA remain unverified, necessitating the development of innovative methods. This research reviews 22 investigation reports of cargo fires on container ships obtained from the IMO Global Integrated Shipping Information System. The safety barriers for each fire incident were extracted and tabulated using the Barrier Analysis Framework. Safety objectives, hazards, and consequences of malfunctioning were categorised using qualitative data analysis software to identify frequent failure patterns, which were then listed sequentially to establish proactive measures (before the fire) and reactive measures (after the fire). The results indicate that altering the ship’s course and stopping accommodation ventilation to mitigate toxic smoke ingress were effective in 85% of the analysed cases. By contrast, container inspection and crew awareness drills exhibited low effectiveness as preventive barriers, at 8% and 6%, respectively. Shortcomings in safety equipment usage (due to inappropriate actions) were identified as mitigation barriers with moderate effectiveness 40%. The results demonstrate that integrating proactive and reactive risk control options into a cohesive solution is effective in mitigating the occurrence and its consequences.