Gave the document a quick scan and it seems very thorough! Well done! and let me second the BZ!
Luckily we had only one "almost fire" event in the 32 years we have been open to the public. A motor control board overheated and began smoking to an alarming level... as in any smoke is BAD on a smoke boat! The visitors aboard were evacuated and the system deenergized.
Aboard COD we have extinguishers in every compartment and emergency lighting. Ofcourse the one really worrisome aspect is our vertical ladders. I discussed this with a firechief once and he said the staircases on other boats (he had visited several other museum boats) were in his opinion about the same hazard as a vertical ladder, as in if a numbskull panics it makes little difference if the route out is a ladder or stairs, they're gonna block it.
My major concern is that our "safety screen doors" covering the open hatches are made of heavy steel grates and a weak person (woman, child, elderly) might be challenged to push them up to escape (AB hatch, AEF hatch)... I have designed lightweight replacements that work even better since they allow more light to enter and block rain (on rainy days, the even heavier hatch is often almost completely closed over these compartments
Basically there are two fire states: ONE--Boat is open and visitors aboard. We don't change our smoke detector batterys so they are virtually useless, but smoke would be seen rising from the hatches and help would be summoned. We DO NOT HAVE a fire diagram and need to change that.
TWO-- Boat is closed -- the worst fire situation because the boat's main induction is open and the fire would not go out due to lack of O2 but would burn until it ran out of fuel, and ours being the Martha Stewart boat, with ALLLL of the linens, bedding, towels, etc., it would be UGLY. And we might go a week without a clue in the WINTER (as in NOW)...
A monitoring system might be in order, but the skipper would have to be sold on the issue.
Fires have been an issue aboard the USS LEXINGTON (major fire) and the USS INTREPID (minor fires)...
Thanks! Now I won't sleepwell tonight...
