The day a ship's cargo fire choked a city

Safety questions over scrap metal blaze must be answered

I was at the other end of the M62 in Liverpool when I started getting messages on Friday morning about a ship on fire in Hull.

From a few initial sketchy descriptions, I quickly guessed it was probably a cargo ship being filled with scrap metal piled up on the dockside at Albert Dock.

When the first images started appearing online, my hunch was confirmed.

Such was the volume of smoke billowing from the vessel, someone suggested I should be able to see it from the top of the Liver Building.

While I remained smog-free in Merseyside, a foul-smelling blanket of choking cloud covered much of Hull for the rest of the day.

Image: Humberside Fire and Rescue Service

Businesses closed, courts suspended proceedings, museums shut their doors and the Big Malarkey outdoor children’s literature festival in East Park was cancelled as a safety precaution.

After what apparently sounded like a couple of explosions later on Friday night, the fantastic crews from Humberside Fire & Rescue eventually brought the blaze under control at 5am on Saturday morning before finally extinguishing it.

The rising and falling mountains of scrap metal on Albert Dock have long fascinated me. So much so that last year I clambered through some bushes on the edge of the car park at the neighbouring Nuffield gym to get a better look.

Peering through the fence, I could see piles of rubbish waiting to be scooped up and deposited into the hold of the ship berthed alongside. While most seemed to be metal, there was also lots of plastics and rubber piping too.

What struck me most was the random nature of the scrap piled up in front of me. There was no attempt to cover it, no sheeting or netting. Just discarded junk as far as the eye could see.

Big red-coloured letters painted onto the front of the ship’s bridge spelled out an obvious message: Safety First - No Smoking.

I found out that particular cargo of scrap was destined for Spain, one of a regular series of similar shipments from UK ports. Apparently, we’re very good at exporting our scrap to other places around the world and letting them deal with the dirty work of extracting some value from it.

The Turkish-owned cargo ship Altay at the centre of Friday’s drama has an interesting recent history. According to the Maritime Executive website, the vessel failed a state port inspection in Venice last year when inspectors found deficiencies in the maintenance and readiness of life-saving equipment and a lack of crew training relating to bridge operations. As a result, it was detained for two days until the issues were addressed. A subsequent inspection in Boulogne in France gave it a clean bill of health.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has similar powers of inspection and detention here and I would imagine they’re already planning a visit to Hull in the next few days.

Friday’s fire will almost certainly trigger several investigations, including establishing the exact cause. My money would be on discarded lithium batteries igniting after being crushed as they have done in numerous fires at land-based waste recycling centres in recent years despite repeated public messages from local councils and fire brigades calling on people to ensure batteries are disposed of separately and safely.

The most recent in Hull happened just last month in Morley Street in an incident made more dramatic by a red fireball of flames glowing angrily in the dark night sky.

At the time, I couldn’t help contrast the spectacular drone images of the fire captured by the excellent Chris Fenton of OctoVision Media with the paucity of detailed information from more established local media outlets.

They could only offer vague reports about a “warehouse fire” without anyone actually saying what was in the building.

The days of journalistic curiosity sadly appear to be over. In my day, someone would have been sent to plastics recycling firm Mygroup (still not identified by any local media as far as I’m aware) in Morley Street the morning after to ask questions and establish a few basic facts about the night before.

Similarly, on Friday morning I winced on the Wirral peninsula as I read reports about “a container ship” on fire on the other side of the country. Really? There wasn’t a single container in sight while a simple check on any of the numerous vessel tracking sites would have confirmed it as a bulk cargo ship faster than you can say Lloyd’s Register.

As it is, I really hope the results of the investigations into the ship fire are made public, not least because of the huge disruption caused across the city on Friday.

However, the public also need to know whether procedures were being followed correctly in waste-handling at the dock, what materials were involved and what risks to health were posed by the clouds of smoke and fumes from the blaze.

Because it happened on privately-operated port land, the incident also underlined the curious divide between such sites and the rest of the city.

A different set of rules exist on port land on all manner of issues which non-port users probably never realise.

For example, the huge concrete storage silo built on William Wright Dock a few years ago was constructed without the need to submit a planning application because it was classed as being an operational requirement of the port.

I would expect something similar covers the open-air storage and transfer of waste scrap at the berth on Albert Dock.

If I wanted to open a scrap business at the end of my street, pile scrap 30 metres high and then crane it into trucks arriving on a regular basis, I’d have to not only secure planning permission first but also win over my immediate neighbours and make new friends with the Environment Agency.

On a dock, it’s a different story.

True, organisations like the Hull & Goole Port Health Authority do investigate some dockside activities but usually only in response to a public complaint, usually about an environmental nuisance such as dust or bad smells. However, I’m not aware of any proactive monitoring of existing activities.

Which brings me neatly to the government’s recently-released “new vision for UK ports” which “will propel prosperity in Britain’s coastal communities”.

“By enabling ports to go further and faster with their infrastructure projects, the UK aims to build on the levels of investment already flowing into ports,” said the accompanying press release.

Maritime Minister Mike Kane added:

Ports are the lifeblood of the UK economy, keeping the country moving and trading, and are vital in unlocking prosperity and opportunity for our coastal communities.

We are determined to deliver the projects that will make a real difference to local people, turbocharge economic growth and create jobs as part of our Plan for Change.

Personally, I’m always wary of anyone promising to turbocharge anything but I can live with the idea of encouraging trade with other countries even if Mike couldn’t quite bring himself to mention Brexit or acknowledge how much rubbish we ship elsewhere for others to deal with.