Rod Ammon: Welcome to the CFITrainer.Net Podcast. This month we're talking about marine fires. In the past couple of years, some pretty high-profile incidents have been in the news, including the line of duty deaths of two Newark, New Jersey Fire Department firefighters aboard a docked cargo ship loaded with over a thousand vehicles. And 11 people hospitalized for smoke inhalation when a fan on a Navy ship malfunctioned. Today, we're talking about marine fire investigation and training with Adam Holloway. Mr. Holloway is a private sector fire investigator with over 20 years of experience conducting origin and cause investigations across the United States, including several large-profile structure and marine-related losses. He is an IAAI certified fire investigator, and an IAMI certified marine investigator. He's a member of the NFPA 921 Working Group for chapter 29 on marine fires. Mr. Holloway co-developed the IAAI's Marine fires training and credential endorsement, and is currently a lead instructor for the IAAI's Marine Fire Investigation Course. He has qualified as an expert witness in both civil and criminal cases. He holds a bachelor of Science in Fire Safety and Engineering Technology with an emphasis on fire arson and explosion investigation from Eastern Kentucky University. Adam, we're pleased that you're here with us. Welcome to the podcast.

Adam Holloway: Thank you, sir. I'm very happy to be here today.

Rod Ammon: Well, let's start off with how you got involved in marine fire.

Adam Holloway: Well, it's actually a really interesting story, and it kind of goes back to childhood. I, growing up, worked on vehicles. And gained a ton of experience on engines and electrical systems, AC/DC, all that good stuff, how to tow things and lift and carry things, and all the different things that go into a marine fire investigation. And then early on in my career, at my previous employer, I was asked in a bold and told kind of way, "Do you want to do marine fire investigations?" And I said, "Yes, sir." And learned really quickly, nice vessels, nice boats, nice vessels are nice places. And I always caveat that phrase with, and we also have fires in Brooklyn, New York, which people kind of raise their eyebrow at and say, "Brooklyn?" Yeah, there's actually Marinas in Brooklyn, where they have nice vessels, which is very interesting. But got to do all sorts of marine fire investigations all over the country from that point on. And that was about 2010 timeframe. And so I've been traveling the country ever since doing that as well as regular structure fires.

Rod Ammon: So had 15 years working with this large international insurer, and you built their program in marine fires. You want to talk a little bit about how you made that happen?

Adam Holloway: Yes. So, at my previous employer, myself and another gentleman who was in the industry, Glenn Lawson, actually got tasked with building it out and developing the whole program internally. And so we started doing that. And along the way, I actually got tasked by my boss, at the time Gordon Dukanoy, to work with another gentleman from the industry to start to develop out the IAAI's Marine Endorsement program back then, that's not what we started it as. Myself and Jason Karazynski from Fire Research Technology got offered the opportunity to start developing it for the IAAI. So, took the experience of developing that for the carrier I was with, and then applied that to what we did for the industry as a whole.

Rod Ammon: Nice. So, when you say the industry as a whole, is that the credential endorsement in marine fire or the training itself?

Adam Holloway: So, two parts. I mean, we developed the training for the IAAI with the understanding, first we wanted to do its own standalone certification. And the IAAI said, "Not yet. We like that idea, however, we want to start this as an endorsement and see how the program goes." And so that's what we developed. We developed the training as a feeder into the endorsement program that we've built. As of this morning, I'm having to announce that the first ever CFI-M Marine Designated Fire Investigator has passed the endorsement test.

Rod Ammon: So the first person.

Adam Holloway: Yes, exactly.

Rod Ammon: The IAAI CFI Credential in Marine Fire, I think is the way it's called now. How it's called?

Adam Holloway: Yes, exactly. Yep.

Rod Ammon: Excellent. Were you part of educating that person?

Adam Holloway: Well, interestingly enough, yes. It was me that got the first one. So, it's funny, this is a whole side note, but so I've got it first, I helped build a program, so I have it first. But what's very interesting about the endorsement program and all of IAAI certification endorsements is I had to go through the exact same process as everybody else in order to sit for the test for the endorsement. So I had to go in and add all my training experience and apply for it just like everybody else. And then I actually sat for the test this morning just like everybody else. And so it's really cool to say that nobody gets a free pass to get the endorsement. Everybody, including the people that teach the class, still have to do the same thing. And it really speaks to the integrity of the entire program, which I thought it's very neat to say that.

Rod Ammon: It is nice. And it's nice to know you weren't trying to toot your own horn. But sorry if I turned you out, and I'm glad.

Adam Holloway: No, it's all great.

Rod Ammon: No, it's cool. I mean, it makes sense, right? That somebody who's been in leadership to helping to develop that would be one of the first people to finish the test. Tell me a little bit more about how the Marine Fire Investigation course is developed at the IAAI, so people get an understanding of what goes into that.

Adam Holloway: So, the course in and of itself is a multi-day course. And what's interesting is, there's two days of classroom, and then the third day is actually a live fire investigation. But to back it up a little bit before that is the instructors come in two days prior to the class. What we do to develop out the actual real world scenarios is we spend a full day developing, looking at the vessels that we get, because the vessels that we get donated for these classes, they're not in the best state of repair when we get them. And so we have to doctor them up a little bit so they look really good, and then we put real scenarios in them, so we're not just pouring gasoline and lighting and say, "Go investigate it." We actually put real failures, and we actually cause real failures to happen on board these vessels. We put a whole bunch of cameras in them and outside of them. We record what happens from inception to suppression, so that on the last day of the class, after the rest of the class has gone on, the whole fire investigation part of it, after we train them, they do full scene, they have actors, and they actually create a presentation for us, and we get to watch the presentation, and we get kind of pick it apart on the last day, which is day four. And then we show them what actually happened. And so the students get to see the burning of the vessel, and they compare with the fire patterns that they saw post-fire, and the fire dynamics of watching the video. And they really get to bring it full circle and say, "Yeah, we got that right," or, "Man, I missed that," or those types of things. And I think that really ties it all together and they get to see exactly what happened. But going back to what the actual class consists of, we start at the very beginning. So we start with, "This is what a bow of the vessel is," and it goes all the way through the terminology, and we walk through the systems. We do a whole segment on public and private sector roles, because unlike the regular structure fires, you also have other people involved in the public sector such as US Coast Guard and other individuals. So, really kind of hit on that. We have had a whole section developed by attorneys. Then the class turns into the boat raising and recovery logistics, which goes through all the different aspects of what happens during the initial stages of the fire investigation, which when I talk about the class, one of the things that we talk about is, it's funny, and I poke a little bit at the public sector guys, when I say these firefighters, they found early on in the evolution of fighting marine fires that vessel fires don't burn under water. So, what they tend to do is just sink the vessel to the bottom. They look down from the dock, look down and see the vessels underwater, and they go, "Eh, all right. Now it's out, our job's done." And then what I say is the real work begins, because you have to get the vessel up and out of the water, and recover it, and then all the logistics that go into that. And then that turns into a job in and of itself. And then, finally, then you get to actually do the fire investigation onboard the vessel and manage that stuff. So, we talk about how the differences between vessel fires, the fire investigation portion of fire dynamics, versus fire patterns, and what the difference is, and going to safety, and all the other things that go along with vessel fires, and how they're unique, versus a structure fire.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I hadn't even thought about raising a sunk vessel. That sort of makes me feel like an idiot when I think about it. But I was talking to somebody about submerging something. They were talking about putting a Tesla in a dumpster full of water. So, interesting.

Adam Holloway: It certainly is. And that's one of those instances that was more or less on the job training where I happened to get one of those vessel fires, and then did the actual, "Great, now what am I going to do?" Kind of thing. And so developed out that whole process from the experience of it. And so one of the things that we've done is we've taken a lot of that on the job training experience, because when a lot of us first started doing this, we realized nobody knew how to do these right. And that was the impetus for a lot of this, was, "Let's teach people how to do this right," because we saw a lot of people doing it very wrong, and a lot of things happening that caused scenes to get destroyed or altered, and even fire investigators not really understanding how to do it. So, we really wanted to bring the entire community up into the point where when we showed up to these vessel fire scene exams, the people that were doing it knew what they were doing. It made our lives easier too. The goal there is to make it as real world as possible. And you can't do that unless you put real world failures in these vessels. And I think that's one of the things that differentiates the program from a lot of others, is their true failures. I mean, we have instances where we actually get the high resistance heat connection on an extension cord to actually fail on video and done it in real world, as opposed to we'll just pour a little gasoline next to it, which I've seen other people do. And then it will simulate that. But it's actually the extension cord from a high resistance heat connection failing live on camera.

Rod Ammon: Nice.

Adam Holloway: So that makes things very fun.

Rod Ammon: So, what's the difference between a marine fire and a vehicle fire? Or from a structured fire? What makes the marine fire special?

Adam Holloway: So, aside from the whole recovering logistics and sinking and all that, fire chemistry doesn't change on board a vessel, fire pattern analysis doesn't change on board a vessel. I talk about that. I'm a little cheeky about it when we do the presentation, "Does this actually change when you board a vessel?" No. There's no difference in pattern analysis and fire chemistry. And I noticed this early on in NFPA921 is, 921 in the chapter 29, it doesn't talk about patterns. And I thought that was odd at first until I realized it's really not patterns that are different, it's the compartments and the fire dynamics that differ. And it's also the fact that people are generally, I say generally, in a very understanding of what a structure looks like and you walk into a specific room, you understand that that should be a bathroom or a bedroom or whatever. Most fire investigators when they board a vessel for the first time, the rooms and the compartments aren't exactly what they would expect. There's also fuel loading is tremendously different. Same with window openings and means of egress. It really is the vessel, construction is really the wild west in terms of that type of... So some of the fire safety aspects that we have built into our homes and into commercial structures doesn't at all apply on board a vessel. So, it's not uncommon to only see one means of egress, or the second means of egress most normal human beings couldn't fit through those ways of doing it. Smoke alarms and those types of things really aren't required at this point. Same with fuel packages, you can have a tremendous amount of fuel packages in a small space, and the fire growth and development changes because of those particular situational differences between a vessel and a structure. Now, vehicles do have a lot of the same. There's some fuel loading, ventilation differences. But you also have that onboard a vessel, but you also have a lot bigger machinery spaces, and a lot more complicated wiring and those types of things, as opposed to a vehicle. And when you look at a vehicle, they're mass-produced generally speaking. So wiring diagrams, and there could be thousands of vehicles that you go look at another vehicle. With vessels, that could be the only one in the world that exists. You could have a couple hundred. And in order to go look at an exemplar vessel, you might have to travel halfway across the country or halfway across the world in order to look at an exemplar one. So, there's a little bit more nuanced aspects to a vessel versus a vehicle.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about the wiring. It's almost like an RV situation, or I don't know. It seems...

Adam Holloway: It's a good point, it is kind of like an RV, difference is it's on the water. But you do have AC and DC on board a vessel. The wiring is a little different, because most vessels are not steel. So, the grounding aspect of it and those types of things, they have to go back to the source because you can't just ground it to the frame of the vessel because it's fiberglass. So there is some similarities there in all those different aspects. But that's what makes it fun and interesting and a little different, is it's very unique in those ways too.

Rod Ammon: What are some of the common causes of fires on vessels?

Adam Holloway: Well, the common factor on board in any type of fire is the human element. So you're still going to see a lot of the same human stuff that goes on. What I tell people is, one of the very interesting parts of vessels that's ubiquitous is, unfortunately, is the fact that there's almost always alcohol involved, because it's part and parcel to the whole thing. Whole aspect of vessels is there's generally some sort of, that's a common denominator when you get into human factors. Now, when we talk about things that are common failures that are not a human factor, the most common thing that we see is the shore power cord plug, or between the shore power breaker and the shore power pedestal. So where land-based AC systems connect to the vessel, they generally use it what they call a shore power cord. And shore power cord is nothing more than a large glorified extension cord, that goes from a plug on the dock, at what we call a shore power pedestal, and that's protected with a couple different breakers, and then you hook this giant heavy gauge shore power cord up to between the pedestal and the vessel, one fashion or another, and the average vessel owner doesn't necessarily plug and unplug those appropriately. So they're under load during plug-in and disconnect. The shore power cord falls in the water, and they just pick it out of the water, shake it off a little bit, plug it back in. Or it sits on board the vessel and gets damaged through mechanical fashion or getting wet. And so it's really the weak link in that. So we see a lot of failures from high resistance heated connections in that cord set and where it connects to the vessel.

Rod Ammon: A lot of that because of salt water I guess makes it even worse?

Adam Holloway: Yeah. You add water of any sort to the electrical connections, and mischief happens.

Rod Ammon: Yeah. I've just seen that stuff done at the shore and I'm always blown away by how much fresh water it takes to clean off some of these boats, and to prepare them. Other sources? You said shore powers, big one, human factors.

Adam Holloway: Yeah. So, you have a lot of the same things that you would at a vehicle in comparison to your engine systems, and internal combustion engines. What we see a lot about a lot with some of these vessels, especially the inboard gasoline engines, as we see a lot of explosions every year, and ensuing fire. Generally, very unfortunately, people get badly, hurt when these occur, because follows a general sequence of events of, they pull up to the marine fuel dock, they start fueling up for one reason or the other. Sometimes they put the fuel fill into the rod holder, and that just dumps gasoline down in the bilge. Or there's some sort of issue with the fuel system. They're done fueling, they give the nozzle back to the tenant, they go to start the engine, and it goes boom. And so they're on board, or they're just climbing back on board, it's full of vapors, and you see some catastrophic results of that. So, that one is the one that we see most commonly when human lives get lost or badly burnt because of those events. As an industry though, which is coming to be very nice, is what they call I/Os, or inboard outboard engine. So you have the engine inside and then you have the drive unit outside, are becoming ostensibly obsolete. And that's not because these events are happening, but because technology has come to a point where these outboard engines are becoming more cost-effective, have a great amount of power, and you can put a whole bunch of them on the transom of the vessel. So, the market is changing because the technology of the outboard engines has come dramatically, gotten a lot better over the last few years. And so as time goes on, you're going to see less of those events occur because they just simply don't have those engines in board.

Rod Ammon: That's great to know. It seems like, the way I was raised, the inboard was the cool thing, right? But now I go down to the shore and there's five of those 200-horsepower plus motors on the back and I'm like, "Wow." I guess that's the new technology you're talking about.

Adam Holloway: Yeah, the sky's the limit in terms of the horse powers that they put on these things. It's amazing. And then you put three or four or five of them across the back of these vessels, and those things go like there's no tomorrow. It's pretty cool. But the flip side is, as life goes on, we're going to see less of these explosion events, but we will still see some for years to come because I still see vessels that were manufactured in the 70s still in use today. So, it's not going to go away anytime soon, but the frequency is going to diminish, and that really is a good thing.

Rod Ammon: So, one of the notes that I got from Cathy was that you've done 80 test burns of vessels.

Adam Holloway: 89.

Rod Ammon: 89.

Adam Holloway: 89, yeah. And it's funny, I keep track of that on my CV. And I think everybody should keep track of all the live burns that they attend. But I can say, because I can track all of them, that I have inducted 89 test burns on board vessels. And I always say this, I think I have the world record for that, but if I don't, I want to meet the person that does, because I want to sit there and chat about it with them, and take notes, whoever has it. But I think I do.

Rod Ammon: What did you learn out of all those 89 now test burns? Some things that have surprised you?

Adam Holloway: No two boats burn the same way. That's pretty interesting. And what's interesting, and if you ever get a chance to come watch one happen, you'll see us standing there. And I invite you to Rod. It would be fun, I enjoy watching them. But you'll see us standing there, and we're kind of looking at each other, the instructors, because we've done a lot of these. And we're looking at each other and we're like, "All right, are we good? Should we call it?" Which is send the firefighters in to suppress it. And so it's always that, did we burn it enough to get the patterns that we're hoping for, and leaving enough patterns so the students have a pretty good experience with it? And we go back and forth, and eventually we call it, obviously. And then sometimes we're like, "Man, I did not expect that to burn anything like that," the patterns. And then you go back and you think about it and you watch the videos and you're like, "Okay, that does make sense. However, that was not my initial hypothesis as to what I would've expected for patterns." You still look at them and you still get back to your origin, but they're not exactly what you would expect. So we see that a lot. One of the things that I learned early on was, to make an accidental fire, either in a structure or on board a vessel, is very difficult. So, even to intentionally set them, some days you struggle to get the fire to start, and then you wonder how some of these arsonists are so successful, because this is not the easiest thing in the world to set these in and do a good job with it. The other interesting part of it is, with that, I think what is interesting is there's probably a tremendous amount of near misses that occur in any type of fire, or any type of structure, or vessel, or automotive aspect, is there's probably a lot more near misses we're missing out on that just barely, just couldn't quite get going, or couldn't start, as opposed to actually got to ignition. So, the near misses, I think, incalculable obviously. But it would be very interesting to know more about that. So, I don't think we'll get there.

Rod Ammon: Yeah, I've been around, well, doing this now I think 20 some 25 years. And it always amazes me how hard it is to start a fire sometimes. And like you're saying, who makes the call? When do you put it out so that there's something for everybody to look at and there's enough left that it would be typical, and it's always a challenge. So, I hadn't thought about it with a boat. I shouldn't say boat, I need to say vessel, but...

Adam Holloway: Yeah. I want to touch on that, because a very interesting thing. And I don't know if you notice, but sometimes I slip back in the same, boat, but I'm usually pretty particular about saying vessel. And there's actually a reason why. And that's because in the previous version of 921, all the locations where said boat was changed with vessel. And so if you look at 921 chapter 29, you see it's vessel, or it's a marine fire, or it's a vessel in there. And we were very specific about that because, and that was a suggestion that was made to the working group of the 921 chapter 29 committee, was we should switch it to vessel, and it was a coasty, Stephanie Moore, that made the suggestion. And her logic there was, all boats are vessels, but not all vessels are boats. So, we can do a vessel fire that's not specifically a boat. So, it should apply to more than just boats, but also vessels. So, I always catch myself saying boat all the time, but try to be specific and say vessel.

Rod Ammon: Yeah. I guess it's especially rude if you're on some guy's yacht and you call this ship a boat, I don't know. I haven't been able to be on somebody's yacht, so I haven't been able to make that mistake. I hadn't thought about this, and I had some notes here about thinking about a local fire department getting involved in these fires, and I was like, "Yeah, of course they do." But they have initial jurisdiction over the origin and cause investigation at a marine fire. So, could you share some hints to fire officers, fire investigators who were signed as the first investigator at a marine fire? What should they do? What should they avoid? When do they need to call an expert?

Adam Holloway: For your small town fire departments, that's always a tough thing. And every state's a little different in terms of who the resources that get initially brought out to them. We see a lot of the more on the state level fire investigators that are getting more of the training. So, I would certainly recommend that they reach out to state level. Or there are resources, obviously, that they could call out on. A lot of fire investigators are now able to do this, so they could build those relationships up, and certainly I don't want to put myself out there as anyone in the country can call me, but I'm happy to chat with people. Getting the training is great, but understanding that not all fire departments can send somebody, and the frequency of vessel fires doesn't occur enough to justify that. What's interesting, what I would say first is evidence preservation is key, number one. So, not letting the scene get destroyed, not letting people covered in gasoline, traipse through it, and that type of stuff, and getting the vessel out onto the hard and secure and make sure it doesn't go anywhere. Those are really key things for any fire investigation in general. What you're going to find quite often, especially when the vessels are worth any monetary value is, early on you're going to see a marine surveyor that's going to show up. And so having a marine surveyor is one of the tools in the toolbox, even for us. They're a tremendous depth of knowledge, and wealth of knowledge, on all things marine related. So they can really help those initial steps, because the firefighters aren't really going to know who to call in to raise the vessel, or where they're going to stick it, or those things. And so a surveyor has those contacts. And there's usually surveyors that are local to any specific area that really have the depth of knowledge in order to help them with that. So those would be something. And whoever that surveyor is will just pop up within the first couple of days, because they usually are, Johnny on the spot with those fires or any type of marine related loss. They're getting calls and getting out there pretty quickly.

Rod Ammon: So, are they coming in from an insurance company?

Adam Holloway: Yes. Generally speaking, yes. Although when you get into some of these larger vessels, the owners will have surveyors on speed dial as well, because they utilize them for a host of different things. So, the more expensive the vessel, the more you're going to see some surveyors come out very quickly. And usually, with those very expensive vessels, you're going to see some very experienced and top-notch surveyors that are going to come out from all over the country, all over the world, just depending on where you are.

Rod Ammon: That's a good job title to remember, a surveyor for that, because I didn't know that title, and I'm sure a lot of people in the fire business don't think of a surveyor in the marine world. So, you had wanted to talk about the American Boat and Yacht Council. I had it here, is ABYC. And they're doing work on public education and standards for vessel manufacturing. Is there a message there for fire investigators?

Adam Holloway: So, ABYC does a tremendous amount to ensure that these manufacturers are building safe vessels. And so they are a great resource to look at for training, aside from this really good marine fire investigation training. But the how systems work, and the electrical onboard, and the engines and that type of stuff, American Boat Yacht Council has some great training on how it relates to the marine world. They've written the voluntary standards on it, and that type of information can be accessed, and those are great resources to understand if the vessel has been built, or even some of the marine stuff has been done correctly, and that may be a source of a failure, or not a failure, if it was done right. John Adey and the guys over there, men and women over there, are a great resource to have, and they're very knowledgeable about all things marine related.

Rod Ammon: I wanted to say thank you very much, Adam. We talk so much about structured fires and to get to step outside of the normal conversation and get into a different type of scene, and different type of fire dynamics is good. Good to think about. Thank you for your time.

Adam Holloway: I appreciate the opportunity, Rod. Thank you.

Rod Ammon: This podcast and CFITrainer.Net are made possible by funding from a Fire Prevention and Safety Grant from the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program administered by FEMA and the US Department of Homeland Security. Support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive as well. And voluntary online donations from CFITrainer.Net users and podcast listeners. Thanks for joining us today on the podcast. Stay safe. We'll see you next month. For the IAAI and CFITrainer.Net, I'm Rod Ammon.

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