As the size of ships increases, so does the risk of losses from fire. This in turn increases the need to implement new technology to transform detection and response times. The Cargo Fire & Loss Innovation Initiative (CFLII) provides a risk-free environment for members to pilot existing and emerging technologies and validate use cases.
The latest digital analytics techniques offer scope for new approaches using real-time data analysis to identify earlier heat anomalies that could signify fire events, reducing the risk of escalation.
Kassandra Biggemann is Senior Innovation Manager at Safetytech Accelerator, a technology accelerator originally established by LR and Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF) in 2018. In 2021 the organisation became independent, with the goal to scale-up LRF’s mission of engineering a safer world. More specifically, Safetytech Accelerator helps organisations identify, test and implement technologies that improve safety at work, operational performance and environmental impact.
Safetytech Accelerator is active across a range of safety-critical sectors and challenges, amongst them maritime, and has explored artificial intelligence, advanced data analytics, the latest wireless networks, drone and robot deployment, sophisticated heat and gas sensors, radio wave technology, and electronic noses.
Biggemann explains that the key to the success of the CFLII programme is the level of collaboration from the anchor partners. These include Offen Group, one of Germany’s largest container shipowners, and Maersk, the world’s second largest container line, as well as Evergreen, LR, Ocean Network Express (ONE), Tailwind, ZIM, mutual insurance companies TT Club and UK P&I Club, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and Isle of Man Ship Registry.
Fires at sea, Biggemann, tells Horizons, are increasing in frequency and severity. Fires are a growing threat, fuelled by increased vessel size, mis-declared cargoes and regulations that haven’t changed in decades.
Biggemann highlights the significant rise in ship sizes, particularly in container trades. Fires in a box aboard a small container feeder may initially be as severe as one on board a 20,000TEU mainhaul carrier. But fire-fighting crews on large ships face the potentially hazardous task of locating an underdeck fire ten or twelve tiers down over a ship with a length of more than three football pitches.
Even if they find it quickly, it may already have spread to adjacent containers that could themselves contain flammable or potentially lethal noxious cargoes.
Essential early detection
Once a fire has been detected, a conventional response would be to muster a fire-fighting crew to tackle it. Response time is an important factor if you want to increase your chances of a successful outcome.
“Early detection is essential and any delay means a fire gains energy and becomes out-of-control,” says Capt. Ortwin Mühr, a Master Mariner and Head of the Nautical Department at Hamburg-based ship owner and containership manager, Offen Group, whose history dates back to 1971 from the foundation of Reederei Claus-Peter Offen.
The issue is further compounded by the fact that different fires have different early signatures and characteristics, Biggemann explains. Some emit very little smoke, for example, in which case smoke detectors are ineffective. One essential part of the project is to identify which sensor types are the most effective in responding to fires that involve today’s widely diversified cargoes.
“There is not one ‘silver bullet’, says Enrico Pangoni, Fleet IoT Solutions Lead at Maersk. “Sensors for heat, smoke and smell are all potentially viable options to enhance the current smoke detection approach, and might be used in combination to address different types of fires. Regulations should be technology agnostic and based on goal-based standards.”
Noting that the Initiative is designed to test multiple technology approaches, Biggemann stresses the importance of new technologies targeting early fire detection. Furthermore, it is important to ensure that through this programme anchor partners can obtain robust evidence on the effectiveness of those different technologies. And have confidence they will perform in the real world.
A key part of this work is collaborating with LR in assessing new technology on classed ships. Duncan Duffy, Lloyd’s Register’s Global Head of Electrotechnical Systems reveals that in addition to new marine-related technologies, the CFLII team is testing a range of new technologies, with some specific to shipping and others from different industrial sectors.
Examples include advanced detectors from the forestry sector, or cutting-edge radio-wave technology where signals bounce around a cargo hold using AI to detect small changes in temperature through variations in wave amplitude. Some optical fire detection systems use light scattering principles to measure temperature along a cable.
Another potential technology, Duffy reveals, could be temperature gauges fitted near to or on the containers themselves, with long-range (LoRa) wireless technology designed for low-data-rate communication used to send measurements and alerts. He notes that statistical AI techniques are useful to identify anomalies in data that may include rate of change in specific measures such as the presence of gas, light frequencies, or temperatures.
Existing regulations do not require sensors in every cargo hold, explains Duffy, noting that it takes a significant amount of time for a fire to be detected and to muster a fire-fighting crew, by which time the fire is likely to have taken hold and the crew must decide whether to enter a space that is already filling with smoke.
Container line collaboration
Maersk is a founding member of the CFLII and joined at its inception three years ago.
The company recognises that cargo fires are a growing risk due to increased vessels size, cargo complexity and limited detection capabilities. Maersk is exploring new technologies for early detection and localisation of fires, through both onboard tests and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.
“Owing to the behaviour of different and more diverse cargoes and their fire properties, there will never be one perfect solution,” says Pangoni, who is focussed on fire detection and response technologies for possible adoption by the Copenhagen-based company. He agrees that the aim, “must be to shorten detection time and provide accurate location of the fire source inside the hold, thereby reducing reaction time.”
One challenge when testing new technology from other shore-based domains, he says, is the harsh maritime environment, with humidity, salt and vibrations, temperature variations and continuously changing operational conditions, which makes the cargo hold a different environment to a warehouse or office space. It is therefore essential to test new technologies onboard ships.
Through CFLII, anchor partners can give test evidence to ensure that solutions will be effective across real-world scenarios and conditions at sea.
Capt. Mühr explains that Offen Group’s first vessel suffered a fire 55 years ago and, since then, fire risk and response has been a top priority for the company.
As the owner and manager of around 50 large vessels, its proactive approach to fire risk and its retrofitting strategy have had remarkable results and successfully brought three shipboard fires under control over the last ten years.
He summarises the challenges: ships’ fire-fighting equipment and crew training requirements have not kept pace with cargo developments and increasing vessel size. Offen Group, however, has tackled both with new procedures, large scale simulation exercises with different authorities, and training through customised courses developed with real-world firefighters.
The company’s strategy is centred on selecting thoroughly tested equipment and proper training for crew to give them the skills and confidence to tackle fires. “There is nothing worse in such situations than not being able to rely on your gear and training,” he says.
Like Maersk, Offen Group also partners with Safetytech Accelerator to address the other key priority of decreasing detection time.
Every fire is different, explains Capt. Mühr. Ship’s crew can only respond effectively, he says, “if they are familiar with their equipment and have been instructed by real world professional fire fighters. And finally, are being backed up by an office staff which is willing to spend a large amount of time to educate themselves in this field and know at least whom to call for all the different challenges which may come up. These situations are usually developing in such a complex way that one person alone will not be able to answer all arising questions.”
He notes that the International Maritime Organization’s fire regulations through the SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) Convention set the standards for shipboard fire-fighting equipment. Offen Group’s successful strategy is based on exceeding industry standards, both in terms of personnel training and equipment on board.
Pangoni and Capt. Mühr both acknowledge the important presence of the UK P&I and TT Club as insurers within the project and view their role as essential in encouraging industry to adopt a proactive approach to reduce the risk of fires onboard. Through this collaboration, CFLII lays the groundwork to provide the industry with greater understanding of the challenges, and ultimately prevent, large-scale fires on board.
Wireless connectivity that could enable safety-critical applications
CFLII provides the environment to test different technologies to help reduce the risk of cargo fires and cargo loss. One example is Net Feasa’s connectivity solution. The Ireland-based company is an IoT service provider that has been involved with CFLII since 2024. It is a pioneer in the development of wireless networks for planes and vessels and is using its expertise in the global shipping industry to validate the use of Long-Range Wide Area Networks (LoRaWAN) for safety-critical applications, such as vessel-wide early heat detection.
A new era of global connectivity across the world’s oceans is the facilitator for real-time digital links relating to assets and cargoes. Technology is now available that enables individual containers to ‘talk’ to vessel control towers and shore-based receptors, monitoring many variables across trade lanes and shipping’s supply chains all over the world.
Mike Fitzgerald, the Founder and Chairman of Net Feasa, explains that even difficult-to-digitise assets like containers in steel ships can now, with the evolution of radio networks technology, use agnostic wireless connections to monitor sensor variables on board.
“Our networks can enable every container and refrigerated box, even on a mega-ship, or every vehicle on a car carrier, to provide a data flow of key anomalies in standard parameters that could prove critical to the avoidance of catastrophic loss.
“We are moving towards a hundred percent smart container fleets,” he says. “We enable these boxes to send a signal to the vessel bridge that says, for example: I’m a dry container in Hold Three. I’m ten decks down. My temperature has increased by two degrees in the last five minutes. These real-time alerts give the crew the ability to react to early heat build-up before there are any visible signs of fire, as an additional layer of protection in an augmented fire safety strategy.”
Where the information is sent depends on set parameters. The ship’s crew is the most immediate recipient of the message, particularly when rising temperatures indicate a possible fire and the technology allows a fire-fighting team to be dispatched to the relevant location far sooner than current shipboard systems allow. The data provided by the container system is also likely to be transmitted ashore.
Duncan Duffy, Global Head of Electrotechnical Systems at LR sees the benefits of LoRaWAN wireless networks, noting they could become a key enabler for connecting sensors placed close to or on containers in cargo holds. “Ships present connectivity challenges because of the large amount of steel, which can reduce signal coverage and reliability for conventional wireless systems,” he explains. “LoRa networks are robust in maritime environments as they use different frequency spreads to improve message reliability and so are less sensitive to interference.”
This technology, initially investigated and adopted in shipping by some P&I clubs, has the scope to provide instant data on cargo conditions above and below deck and can be easily scaled to include thousands of devices across a variety of use cases.
Fitzgerald explains that this functionality cannot be achieved without the collaboration of connectivity providers, such as Net Feasa, sensor suppliers that “have very creative ideas and powerful technology”, and pioneering ship owners and operators willing to trial systems.
“This is where Safetytech Accelerator has huge value. They bring together an ecosystem,” he says. “This is the first time that a wireless vessel network like ours will be classified for this use case. It represents a huge step-change in the recognition of the entire industry for a standardised, best-practice approach to safety technology.”
