The mariners aboard the Crowley Maritime Corp. tugboat Sesok recently extinguished a dangerous blaze on the shores of Pilot Point, Alaska, a fishing village along the Yukon River.
The Sesok’s crew was conducting a
routine, petroleum transfer from a fuel barge to onshore storage tanks when a
pile of building materials – trusses, foam insulation boards and plywood –
caught fire about 75 feet from the shore side connection hose, releasing toxic
fumes and a thick plume of dark smoke into the air.
The tug’s captain, Crowley’s Matt McLain, ordered his crew
to suspend operations, muster on deck and follow the company’s fire emergency
action plan.
“Thankfully, we have fire drills aboard the vessel each
week,” McLain said. “Even though our training is centered around vessel fires,
we were able to adapt accordingly and assist the villagers.”
Some crewmembers used the tug’s fire extinguishers to fight
the flames, while others led onlookers away from the toxic fumes. The crew also
utilized the Sesok’s portable water pump to combat the blaze with fresh
river water.
It took about two hours to fully extinguish the fire, after
which the crew completed the planned fuel transfer and sailed to their next
destination, as scheduled.
The Sesok isn’t the first Crowley tug to
assist in a firefight; in 2006, crewmembers aboard the tug Guard helped firefighters
extinguish a house fire on Washington’s Vashon Island. In that incident,
because of the rural makeup of the island, the fire department was unable to
position its engines as close as they would have liked and relied heavily on
Crowley's assistance from the water.
