Burning Bulker Extinguished in The Netherlands

After blazing for six hours at the Mallegat-Noord port in Dordrecht, emergency services finally controlled a fire which broke out on a cargo ship.

Authorities in The Netherlands responded to alerts at 14:00 on July 10, which resulted in the port being shut to all shipping traffic by the Ministry for Infrastructure and Water Management RWS West NL Zuid, and the Port of Rotterdam.

Workers and citizens in the surrounding area were asked to take necessary measures to avoid the smoke, which included closing all windows and doors.

#Mallegat #Dordrecht – Nogmaals de oproep: heeft u rookoverlast? Blijf uit de rook! Sluit ramen en deuren en zet ventilatie uit. Kom niet naar het incident – kijkers: blijf uit de rook!, voor pers is een persvak aan de Van Leeuwenhoekweg. https://t.co/BrKcI1TC0T pic.twitter.com/0kVt5Ac49b

— Veiligheidsregio ZHZ (@VRZHZ) July 10, 2018

Herman Meijer, of the Port of Rotterdam, discusses how PortMaps may be implemented to share information in a recent Port Technology technical paper

Measurement teams arrived at the scene, as well as other populated areas close to the incident, to test the concentration of harmful substances emitted by the fire, but did not detect anything which could be seriously dangerous.

Although traffic on the industrial estate around the burning ship reopened at approximately 17.30, with the cancellation of a shipping blockade at 18.20, the fire department continued to fight the blaze until after 20:00.

There is still no information available regarding how the fire on the 58,600 dead-weight-tonnage (dwt) vessel began.

Read more:

• The port of Rotterdam has launched a new pilot project to move bunkering at the port to a paperless, and more efficient, operation

• The Port of Rotterdam has reported that it has made progress in cleaning up the oil spill from the ‘Bow Jubail’