Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[Diver2019]

Distress calls, mourning and search for answers: How the California boat fire unfolded

"3:15 a.m. A distress call is made to the Coast Guard. Authorities later said a call was made from the Conception and others from the Great Escape. In audio of a call on Broadcastify that authorities suggested may have been edited to combine multiple calls, only the Coast Guard dispatcher can be heard, not the responses.

The dispatcher asks if passengers are trapped and if there's an escape hatch.

3:30 a.m. The Coast Guard arrives on scene and begins to fight the fire.

7:20 a.m. Conception sinks in 64 feet of water off the coast of Santa Cruz Island.

9 a.m. At a press conference, the Coast Guard says that 34 people are unaccounted for and that shoreline searches on the island are underway. The department also says that the five crew members were asleep on the top deck while passengers were asleep below deck.

11:15 a.m. The Coast Guard announces that four bodies have been found near the Conception."

Sep 3

"10:00 a.m. At a press conference, Sheriff Brown says no additional survivors have been found, adding that the victims ranged from age 17 to 60, with the majority being from the Bay Area.

Brown indicated that one crew member had been asleep in the passenger's quarters and that the five surviving crew members would be formally interviewed by the Sheriff's Office on Tuesday. He said there was no indication passengers got onto the deck and that it "appeared" the victims had most likely been trapped by fire."

 

[Wookie]

Why do you say "Has nothing to do with this fire" Have I missed something regarding the cause?

When my boat burned, it wasn't this boat (Conception). I was backing up the hidden wiring post.

 

[KevinNM]

Do ANY of them show how fast the fire has spread?

No, the people on the Grape Escape said that when the crew on the incident vessel woke them the incident vessel was on fire from stem to stern. The first picture were from then, and it shows the boat totally in flames but still structurally intact. By the time it sank everything above the main deck seemed to have burned away or collapsed into the lower hull.

 

[rjack321]

I don't post much just read to try to learn something. For me; the learning part in this horrible tragedy is the cause of the fire. My opinion is; as fast as this fire spread, over a large area, this has some appearance of an electrical fire, similar in how RV's burn to the ground in minutes.

Speculation: an electrical short occurs in a wire/cable concealed inside a cavity (a wall as an example) with a limited amount of oxygen. Circuit breaker doesn't "trip" allowing the entire wire to heat up (similar to how a toaster element works) causing the construction materials to smolder. Once air (O2) gets to the smoldering materials, the entire area could combust all within a few seconds. What fueled this fire?

I have no idea if they were running on AC generator power or battery/inverter power. I have no idea of the construction of this boat's structure but kind of looks like a wood skeleton with fiberglass inner and outer skin. Was the boat air or hydraulic controlled from the wheel house? Location of electrical cable, air lines, hydraulic lines? What I feel I do have a grasp on, is this fire went from passive to very active and in a very short period of time covering a relatively large area, almost like a flash over but they don't generally happen in open/ventilated area's.

Like everyone else just pure speculation but some food for thought.

Thoughts a prayers to all friends, families and responders of those lost.

Boat fires are overwhelmingly caused by electrical issues so this isn't just idle speculation
Causes Of Boat Fires - BoatUS Magazine

 

[bigDave]

An old new article said it had a steel hull. The hull shortly before it sank looked like it had suffered extensive damage from the fire - and steel needs to get really hot to melt - so maybe it was fiberglass or aluminum.

The Conception had a wood hull covered with fiberglass.

‘Worst Case Scenario’ in Santa Cruz Island Boat Fire

 

[roakey]

I mentioned this in passing in a previous reply, but let me be explicit:

The fire need not have spread quickly if it took awhile to detect.

If the anchor watch was in the wheelhouse, they couldn't see the deck. They certianly could not see inside the dining area.

If there were no indication from fire/smoke detectors on the bridge, detectors going off might have not been heard (cool night so the wheelhouse door was closed? walkman?) - though in such a case I would have expected people below to hear the alarms coming from the dining area down the open staircase.

I donno, our assumption of a quickly spreading fire may be incorrect. Time will tell.

I think information about the smoke detectors (Bridge indicators? Working or not?) will be pivotal.

Roak

 

[rjack321]

I mentioned this in passing in a previous reply, but let me be explicit:

The fire need not have spread quickly if it took awhile to detect.

If the anchor watch was in the wheelhouse, they couldn't see the deck. They certianly could not see inside the dining area.

If there were no indication from fire/smoke detectors on the bridge, detectors going off might have not been heard (cool night so the wheelhouse door was closed? walkman?) - though in such a case I would have expected people below to hear the alarms coming from the dining area down the open staircase.

I donno, our assumption of a quickly spreading fire may be incorrect. Time will tell.

I think information about the smoke detectors (Bridge indicators? Working or not?) will be pivotal.

Roak

Or the fire was smoldering and the detectors didn't go off at all (note the 55% failure rate for smoldering fires)
nbc5

until it eventually flashed over rapidly.

 

[dmaziuk]

Probability and severity are not correlated. A hand grenade rarely goes off unintended, but when it does, there's a significant impact. A Genesis 1200 scooter has a 1350Wh Li-ion battery. An UWLD tall can is 160Wh. I've never heard of either catching on fire, but I can tell you I don't want to be around if one did. A sealed can light battery could turn into a literal grenade of the can doesn't yield to heat before pressure.

Agree, but a) did they have scooters and can lights and b) would it set the entire boat on fire faster than anyone can run?

Dr. Goo says a most common Tesla battery pack contains 7,104 18650 cells for 85kWh: an order of magnitude (edit: conservatively, it's really closer to two) over the 1.35kWh scooter battery. If you were to fast-charge them at 5V/1A, you'd need a 35kW genny onboard running for at least an hour. Those are size of a large man, not including the soundproofing etc., and weigh a metric ton.

 

[Dacuda]

 

[Louisville Diver]

Agree, but a) did they have scooters and can lights and b) would it set the entire boat on fire faster than anyone can run?

Dr. Goo says a most common Tesla battery pack contains 7,104 18650 cells for 85kWh: an order of magnitude over the 1.35kWh scooter battery. If you were to fast-charge them at 5V/1A, you'd need a 35kW genny onboard running for at least an hour. Those are size of a large man, not including the soundproofing etc., and weigh a metric ton.

I was on a night dive once and was looking directly at my buddy at the moment his old school Princeton Tec dive light flooded. For a brief second, that thing (only four lousy D cells) lit up like the sun. For some goofy reason, it came up resealed when we surfaced - we unscrewed it, the thing started spewing everywhere and the guts were mangled and black.