Car Carrier Blaze Kills Two Firefighters In New Jersey

Photo: Farid Mernissi / Wikimedia Commons

Two firefighters were killed while battling a fire on a car carrier in Newark, New Jersey. The Grande Costa D’Avorio, an Italian roll-on-roll-off car and container ship, was docked at Port Newark when a fire broke out on board yesterday. The intensity of the blaze on the ship carrying over 1,000 vehicles injured several other firefighters.

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The fire started among five to seven cars on the ship’s 10th deck as dockworkers and crew members moved vehicles. WABC reports that firefighters from the Newark Fire Division were dispatched to respond to the blaze at 9:30 p.m. Once on the scene, the firefighters identified that the fire had spread to the 11th and 12th decks. The heat was so intense that the firefighters were forced to back out of the ship. Two firefighters killed were lost while backing out and got trapped on board. The injured firefighters able to evacuate were transported to University Hospital in Newark.

2 firefighters killed while battling ship fire in Newark, NJ

According to WABC, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said:

“We lost two firefighters today. A tragedy for us in the city of Newark and tragic for all firefighters who know what it means to go in a burning structure in a danger that you are going to have to experience when you do so… There are about 5,000 cars on the boat, just to give you a perspective. This is a very huge structure that these guys had to breach. In the process we had two calls for maydays.”

As the fire was fought overnight, the two trapped firefighters were eventually found on board and pronounced dead. The Grimaldi Group, the ship’s operator, stated the Grande Costa D’Avorioi isn’t at risk of sinking and there were no electric cars or hazardous materials aboard the ship.