No one was reported injured beyond minor smoke inhalation in an early morning small fire aboard the state ferry Columbia on its southbound voyage into Wrangell on Aug. 23.
All 11 passengers and crew taken off the ship for medical evaluation in Wrangell returned to the ferry as it continued its voyage to Ketchikan later that same day, according to a spokeswoman for the Alaska Department of Transportation.
The fire started in cardboard near an ice machine in the bar area, the spokeswoman said.
Ten cases of beer were lost to the fire. “Honestly, that’s the extent of the damage,” said Steven Harrison, a crew member aboard the ship and part of the first-response team.
“We’re assuming some sort of electrical malfunction, or maybe it was just too close to the cardboard cases of beer, we don’t know,” Harrison said.
Officials reported the bar would reopen by this week.
The fire broke out as the Columbia was traveling through the Wrangell Narrows. The ship arrived in Wrangell close to schedule but was delayed several hours in its departure for Ketchikan as people were evaluated at the hospital and the ship inspected.
“In the bar last night, at 3:15 in the morning, a general alarm went off. They said that it was not a drill, which is pretty obvious at 3:15 we wouldn’t have a drill in the middle of the Wrangell Narrows,” Harrison said on Aug. 23.
“All of the people on Fire Team One, we jumped up and ran for our fire suits. They told us to get dressed, and we all donned our fire suits, put on our oxygen tanks and went on oxygen because the ship was filling up with smoke.”
By the time Harrison got to the fire, it had already been mostly extinguished by another crew member.
“But there was still smoldering, so we took water in and sprayed down the bar,” Harrison said. “There’s a lot of dirt and debris and ashes in the bar mixed with the … fire extinguisher stuff. So it kind of made a little bit of a mess, and it’s gonna take us a while to clean up.”
Harrison said his six-person fire team used supplemental oxygen, which helped them avoid the effects of smoke inhalation. But other crew and passengers felt the effects.
“The crew reacted pretty quickly, but out of an abundance of caution they wanted to make sure that anyone that was nearby got seen for smoke inhalation,” said Shannon McCarthy, spokesperson for Department of Transportation, which oversees the ferry system.
McCarthy said 11 people were evaluated: nine passengers and two crew members.
Emergency medical services in Wrangell transported the people to the hospital. All had been treated and released by early afternoon, according to a hospital spokesperson. McCarthy confirmed that all 11 reboarded the ship and continued south.
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