San Diego Harbor Ship Fire

On Friday September 29th, at 9:40 a.m., a fire burst out on a steel commercial fishing ship near Seaport Village. It is stated that the smoke “moved quickly through the air and could be seen all along the San Diego Harbor and from some parts of downtown,” (NBC San Diego). Ear-splitting sirens could be heard as firefighters rushed onto the boat. The Harbor Police Department and U.S. Coast Guard were present at the scene as well. They found no one on board the massive 120-foot-long vessel and affirmed that the fire had started in the lower levels of the boat.

Chris Weber, the Assistant Chief of Emergency Operations with SDFD (San Diego Fire Department), stated that after about 45 minutes into battling the fire, “close to 100 responders were battling the ship fire including a command staff and 20 to 25 fire apparatus,” (NBC San Diego). Around 10:30 a.m., the conditions of the ship were beginning to get better. However, about 40 minutes later, SDFD officials decided to change their course of attack from offensive to defensive.

The fire had been upgraded to a third-alarm response and had most-likely reached temperatures of 1000+ degrees. Now, crews from the Coronado, National City, and Chula Vista Fire departments were helping or rushing to the scene to provide aid. Harbor Police Department Chief John Bolduc said, “the agencies made a unified decision to pull firefighters off the ship because it was no longer safe to fight the flames on board,”(NBC San Diego). Chief Brian Fennessy stated that, “steel softens and you certainly don’t want firefighters in there on a soft steel floor that could give way,” (Fox 5 San Diego).

At 11:40 a.m. the fire still blazed and Bolduc told NBC San Diego that officials hoped the fire would burn itself out within a few dozen hours. Firefighters kept a watchful eye overnight, as the relentless blaze continued to scorch the vessel. The following morning, “The blaze was still burning as heavy smell of smoke continued clouding the waterfront” (NBC San Diego). Some of the surrounding businesses in Seaport Village were temporarily closed due to the fumes from the smoke.

There was one firefighter that had been taken to the hospital for treatment of heat exhaustion on Friday and released at about 5 p.m. that same day. There were no other recorded injuries. The blaze was finally put out on Sunday and the cause of the fire is still undetermined.

Initially, the U.S. Coast Guard believed that they had found the owner of the ship that weekend, but a man from

Tijuana whom they had contacted, stated that he had sold the vessel. “Authorities from the Port of San Diego now know that the San Diego-based company Charles Dorsch Ship's Agents handled dockage and berthing of the ship in the San Diego Bay,” port spokeswoman Brianne Page stated (KUSI). Also stated by KUSI, “Charles Dorsch Ship's Agents acted only as a representative for a Mexican company, located in the state of Jalisco on the central Pacific Coast, that in turn represents the owner of the ship” (KUSI). Port officials still do not have an identity of that owner.