Do engine fires happen? Naturally aspirated, small diesels.

[sinnerman]

I believe that the antifreze in the cooling system is more prone to ignition than the diesel.

my two cents

cheers

[stormalong]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Sure, if one has the space and dollars, go for the auto system.

After thinking about the last time we entered at West Palm and were passed by three 60' Sportfishers with transoms buried so deep we couldn't see their names ... I personally would bypass the auto-shutdown feature.

The odds of having an engine fire are small. The odds of having an engine fire when you need to do a collision avoidance maneuver are even smaller.

Automatic shutdown is inexpensive if you can DIY it.

Not having the engine suck out your fire suppressant if there is a fire is priceless.

[JBsurfin]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

It meets the standard. But a serious question is, is the standard enough? In many cases, ABYC is a very robust standard, and meeting it is more than sufficient. I'm not convinced it is here -- I believe that ABYC was probably swayed in this standard by struggling with the cost/benefit, since establishing a standard so expensive that only the rich can boat is not appropriate.

In order for the fire port to do the job, a user has to identify the situation (enough smoke to notice?), go below, look in the fire port, see the fire, grab an extinguisher, insert it, activate it, and spread dry chemical powder all over (and inside) your engine. And then, the real key, hope a dry chemical extinguisher pushed through a single point with little or no "aiming" is sufficient for the task.

An automatic system will identify the fire, activate, has a high probability of extinguishing the fire, and will "notify" you by shutting down the engine.

There's no question an installed system is significantly better than a fire port. But there's a big question of the cost/benefit. If it is overwhelmingly better at fighting a fire with zero risk of occurring, it's not worth it. Neither of those factors are completely true, so the cost/benefit is a factor.

Considering on many sailboats the engine room is already contained, typically small and with limited air opening, use of a ABC extinguisher(mine is mounted at the engine room panel) of adequate size is more than enough to knock down a fire. Even had my nephew prove the point with a similar sized wood box quickly thrown together, with an opening for the nossel, and a raging fire within. Was out in seconds. I'll mention he is a retired Deputy Chief for Norfolk VA FD. I feel comfortable with my setup. Maybe others wouldn't.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by JBsurfin

Considering on many sailboats the engine room is already contained, typically small and with limited air opening, use of a ABC extinguisher(mine is mounted at the engine room panel) of adequate size is more than enough to knock down a fire. Even had my nephew prove the point with a similar sized wood box quickly thrown together, with an opening for the nossel, and a raging fire within. Was out in seconds. I'll mention he is a retired Deputy Chief for Norfolk VA FD. I feel comfortable with my setup. Maybe others wouldn't.

It may be sufficient. My engine room is probably 6' long, 3' wide, and 3' high (some parts are not so high). But even if sufficient, sucking dry chemical through your running engine can be catastrophic. An up-thread post said it required engine replacement.

Note, another upthread post talked about disasters resulting from inability to restart after CO2 or Halon flooding. That is completely illogical. Neither of these cause any physical damage, and can be completely ventilated away. I can't believe that either would prevent engine restarting after opening all engine room access, waiting 60 seconds, and then cranking the engine for 30 seconds. Dry chemical, no question -- but gaseous systems no way.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Jetx

How about the new (ish) Blazecut type extinguisher tubes?

As I understand it, they don’t satisfy regulatory requirements, but should provide a very real safety benefit as a supplement to the required minimum number of (conventional) extinguishers.

To which "regulatory requirements" do you refer ?

[JBsurfin]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

It may be sufficient. My engine room is probably 6' long, 3' wide, and 3' high (some parts are not so high). But even if sufficient, sucking dry chemical through your running engine can be catastrophic. An up-thread post said it required engine replacement.

Note, another upthread post talked about disasters resulting from inability to restart after CO2 or Halon flooding. That is completely illogical. Neither of these cause any physical damage, and can be completely ventilated away. I can't believe that either would prevent engine restarting after opening all engine room access, waiting 60 seconds, and then cranking the engine for 30 seconds. Dry chemical, no question -- but gaseous systems no way.

sucking dry chemical through your running engine can be catastrophic/ Wouldn't standard engine fire procedure be to 1)cut off fuel supply, 2)pull your engine kill
Both of mine are external to the engine compartment. I would also view I'd rather lose an engine than my entre vessel.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by JBsurfin

sucking dry chemical through your running engine can be catastrophic/ Wouldn't standard engine fire procedure be to 1)cut off fuel supply, 2)pull your engine kill
Both of mine are external to the engine compartment. I would also view I'd rather lose an engine than my entre vessel.

I would rather lose my engine than my vessel too. And, yes, if your mind is sufficiently clear, killing the engine first is a good step.
I was responding to the upthread post that using Halon, substitutes, or CO2 resulted in inability to restart the engine (doubtful) resulting in cascading failures. Also responding to the suggestion that a fire port would be better than an installed system (although a fireport with CO2 would be equally good).

[svfinlandia]

Originally Posted by Jeff on Aurora

Does anyone have first hand knowledge of an engine compartment fire caused by a small (say under 100-ish hp) non-turbo diesel on a sailboat?

I'm about to replace the the 20 y/o Fireboy automatic halon extinguisher in my engine compartment. Wow! Talk about sticker shock!! A new extinguisher and cable are almost $1k. I will spend the money to have a safe vessel, but there may be other issues to address where the money is better spent. I'm not feeling a huge risk of engine compartment fire.

Personally, I have first-hand knowledge of two engine room fires, but both were on large hp diesels (approx 45' sport fish boats) and turbocharger failure was the suspected source of ignition. One of these boats went from "Hey, do you guys smell smoke?" to a completely engulfed vessel in less than five minutes.

I have been around diesel powered sailboats for three decades and have yet to hear of a serious engine compartment fire. Sure, there have been plenty of fuel system leaks that resulted in a complete mess and the engine stopping, but none led to a fire. How would one ignite diesel anyway unless 1) fuel or compressed fuel vapor was spilling and 2) there was some very hot ignition source like an electrical fire?

Thanks in advance,

Jeff

Several years ago, I was at anchor for the night in Fort Pierce, Florida. In the morning, I raised the anchor and motored back to the channel. As I started under the bridge my engine alarm went off. I couldn’t stop because there was traffic both coming toward me and behind me so I motored on into the turning basin and shut off the engine. I smelled smoke, grabbed a fire extinguisher and carefully raised the engine compartment hatch. Luckily, lots of smoke, but no fire. Apparently I had picked up a plastic bag or something and it had blocked the engine water intake. All of the smoke was coming from a melted exhaust hose. I called for a tow, got into the marina and replaced the hose and all was well. I and my old Perkins 4.236 survived, but it could have been worse.

Al, S/V Finlandia

[Ike]

Kind of late to the party but here's my 2 cents worth.

Back in 1976-1979, my first assignment as a USCG Officer was reviewing accident reports and investigations of recreational boating accidents. I can remember two in a three year period that were diesel engine fires. One was directly attributed to a fuel leak spraying diesel onto a hot manifold. The other was "supposedly" the same cause, but suspicious. It was what I used to call burn your boat month (October when everyone is laying up their boat for the winter) and had some suspicious elements I won't go into because they were just suspicions on my part and the insurance investigator. That boat sank in 300 feet of water and AFAIK was never recovered.

In 1985 (or 6) I and several other is the Boating Safety Office went o a demonstration of an automatic shut off system for a halon fire fighting system. This was when Halon was being sold as the "solution" for fighting engine room fires and there was a concern about it being sucked out of the engine room if the engine and blowers were still running. But they also demonstrated that after a short time or so the engine room could be cleared of halon and the engine could be restarted. The results of that research and development were incorporated into the ABYC standard.

I cannot remember any other direct reports, but I do remember anecdotal reports of diesel fires. It does happen but not very frequently. And as others have pointed out here diesel will burn. When I went to Fire Fighting School in Boot Camp, and later in OCS, we had to fight engine room fires (it was a mock up, but the fuel was diesel) with AfFF. Pretty nasty. Make sure you wear an airpack.

[goodoldwoody]

Ive often wondered if a yacht engine would catch on fire if the raw water supply to the exhaust was stopped.
Raw water stops exhaust hose catches on fire burns a diesel hose then fuels fire of course the engine would stop but by then the fire is set.

Any thoughts?

Woody

[nofacey]

Not a sailboat, but my family ran a booming ground for years, and had one small diesel engine fire (think it was 3 cylinder, 90 odd hp) when a fuel line cracked right over top of the dry exhaust pipe - which ran hot enough to ignite the splashing fuel.
Small steel boom boat, doused the fire, rebuilt the engine, changed fuel line routing on all it’s sisters.

[nofacey]

Originally Posted by goodoldwoody

Ive often wondered if a yacht engine would catch on fire if the raw water supply to the exhaust was stopped.
Raw water stops exhaust hose catches on fire burns a diesel hose then fuels fire of course the engine would stop but by then the fire is set.

Any thoughts?

Woody

Exhaust hose melts, doesn’t ignite….boat fills with exhaust, everyone yells, someone cuts engine……no fire.
- if you have a fiberglass water lift/muffler, the internal baffle will melt before the exhaust hose, lots of smelly white smoke out back of boat, everyone yells, some one shuts down motor….again, no fire.
Have seen first, experienced second.

[skipperpete]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

It may be sufficient. My engine room is probably 6' long, 3' wide, and 3' high (some parts are not so high). But even if sufficient, sucking dry chemical through your running engine can be catastrophic. An up-thread post said it required engine replacement.

Note, another upthread post talked about disasters resulting from inability to restart after CO2 or Halon flooding. That is completely illogical. Neither of these cause any physical damage, and can be completely ventilated away. I can't believe that either would prevent engine restarting after opening all engine room access, waiting 60 seconds, and then cranking the engine for 30 seconds. Dry chemical, no question -- but gaseous systems no way.

Wrong on both counts particularly for the two examples I mentioned, the Viking 92 lost all power instantly so the generators went off line and literally nothing worked,no engine room ventilation. I assume they carried an engineer and there’s no way he would have been going into that machinery space if it was full of oxygen displacing snuffer gas nor would there have been much hope of a restart of the genset in that atmosphere. Regarding your “no physical damage “ remark, when turbos are operating under load the turbine temp is up around 1200°C and the shaft is cooled by the lube oil flow so an instant hot shutdown at cruise rpm causes the turbo to stop immediately and the shaft sits down on the ( normally whitemetal) bearings and as the heat flows from the turbine the bearings melt and that turbo is toast.
Regarding the reefcat with the halon uncommanded discharge, here in Australia we have a lot of operating procedures and rules to keep crew and passengers from harm, we do drills in anticipation of this very event and there is no situation where an engineer could enter the engine room after a gas flooding without a breathing apparatus and no situation where a restart of the gensets and engines would be attempted without a thorough ventilation and inspection of the machinery by the engineer and a surveyor. More recently we have adopted various deluge and water veil systems instead of Co2 so it’s a lot better for the crew if they get caught below in such an incident. As for the DIY systems on yachts, if you have a halon or Co2 system in your boat have a look at that fragile glass bulb temp release or the pull cable and consider your exit plan if either of those releases activate. Engine space fires on sailboats are so rare that these DIY systems are not required and you would be far better served by a conventional dry powder extinguisher inside the companionway.

[Emmalina]

Had to fix a cat that had a water maker installed. The metal braided high pressure pipe was cable tied to the main 12v wire. After a week of use it ground away the insulation and the metal braid went red hot chopping through the main wiring loom the hydraulic steering and was just bout to go through the fuel lines when I got to it. A real mess...

[argonauta1]

Moorings Charter Yacht Beneteau 370. New Zealand Bay of Islands 1995. Wife and I picked up yacht and motored out the channel planning to anchor off Russell for the night. With wife at helm, I went forward to prep the anchor. Returning to the cockpit, I smelled smoke. Went below: lots of smoke from engine compartment. Immediately went to cockpit and shut down engine. DID NOT open engine compartment, Went below managed a Mayday on VHF giving posn just off Russell. Radio quit just after. Grabbed bags still unpacked and threw same into cockpit. FOUND a fire extinguisher and fired it though the engine comp vents in companionway. By then local boaters arrived took off wife and bags. Since smoke was subsiding, I stayed on board, accepted a tow to dock where was met with folks who grabbed lines which I had readied and the local volunteer fire brigade went to work as I watched from the dock.

Got on a shore based phone and talked to Russell Radio gave them more info and asked them to advise Moorings we needed another boat. That arrived in less than an hour. Retrieved wife and bags and we transferred to it. End of story. Oh, it was only a 27 footer but fine for the area we planned to explore. Yes, once we had our own boat which was a Beneteau 440 we added a couple of extinguishers making sure one was available in the cockpit and a couple below. We also kept them updated but a halon system? Overkill.