The Maritime Fire and Safety Association supports shipboard fire training and equipment for land-based firefighters from 11 agencies in Oregon and Washington. Membership consists of 24 ports and private facilities along the Lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers. They tasked themselves with developing a system to ensure adequate, timely and well-coordinated response to ship fires along the 110-mile shipping channel, which includes two states, seven counties, 14 cities, seven port districts and more than 25 agencies.

"Other regions of the country have sought to create something which they believe to be similar, but these have been largely unsuccessful. Why?" asks the association's 25th-anniversary federal report. "MFSA is the result of the collaboration of local interests … utilizing the resources that each of those local interests could contribute. In some cases, the contribution was equipment, in others manpower, and it has been funded through self-assessment. In other words, MFSA was established before and without federal funding."

Roots in tragedy

In 1982, a bulk grain carrier called the M/V Protector Alpha was refueling at a grain facility on the Columbia River when fire broke out aboard the vessel. The Kalama (Wash.) Fire Department was called in to combat the fire; two neighboring departments assisted in the effort. Coast Guard personnel arrived soon after, and the agencies formulated a plan to extinguish the fire.

Minutes before extinguishment, the dock foreman ordered the ship cast off from the dock, without consulting any of the firefighters. The vessel was cast adrift, with several firefighters stranded aboard. The ship dropped anchor about 1,000 yards downstream, out of reach of all firefighting equipment that had been left behind. The vessel was destroyed; one U.S. Coast Guardsman was killed and a local firefighter was injured.

In 1983, port authorities, private companies, federal and state agencies, counties, and fire districts formed the MFSA in response to the tragedy. Their goal was to promote fire protection, safety, and enhancement of navigation on the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers.

The Fire Protection Agencies Advisory Committee was formed in 1986 to develop a comprehensive system to ensure effective response to vessel fire incidents in the lower-Columbia region. The committee purchased and delivered the first specialized equipment to participating fire agencies for fighting marine fires.

The committee has progressed from "planning and responding as individual agencies, to planning, training, and responding as a team — a concept that is, quite literally unheard of across the rest of the nation," says Mike Schiller, former MFSA board president and Port of Vancouver USA operations manager.

F-PAAC now is comprised of 10 fire agencies located throughout the river system. These agencies voluntarily contribute both staff time and equipment for participation in meetings, drills and other training exercises. Mutual-aid agreements, signed by all participating fire agencies, enable those agencies to assist each other in the event of a shipboard fire.