Engine Room Fire on Containership Injures Four at Port of Wilmington

Firefighters were called to the Port of Wilmington on Wednesday morning after flames erupted in the engine room of a docked vessel. 

The emergency call came in at 9:28 a.m. for a fire aboard the M/V Chiquita Voyager, a Liberia-flagged containership. Firefighters arrived to find smoke billowing from the ship’s superstructure, prompting an immediate multi-agency response.

Firefighters boarded the vessel to begin suppression operations and evacuate crew members. The fire, which was confined to the engine room, was aided by the ship’s onboard suppression system that helped contain the flames to their area of origin.

Crews worked for approximately three hours to bring the incident under control, though fire units remained on scene throughout the day to monitor for potential flare-ups.

Four crew members sustained injuries during the fire and were transported to Christiana Hospital by EMS for treatment. The severity of their injuries was not immediately disclosed.

The response drew roughly 70 fire and EMS personnel from multiple agencies, including Wilmington Fire Department units, New Castle County EMS, New Castle County Emergency Management, and mutual aid from several New Castle County fire departments.

The Wilmington Fire Department and other responding agencies are expected to remain at the port to investigate the cause of the fire and monitor conditions aboard the ship.

The Port of Wilmington is a full-service deepwater port and marine terminal strategically located on the Delaware River with extensive warehousing capabilities and direct access to major interstate highways and Class-I rail service.

In June, Enstructure, a leading U.S. terminal and logistics company, announced a new long-term agreement with Chiquita Brands to continue and further expand its partnership at Port Wilmington, Delaware as its mid-Atlantic distribution hub. The agreement builds upon an existing partnership established in 1988 when Chiquita first consolidated its mid-Atlantic supply chain operations at Port Wilmington.

Since then, Port Wilmington has become Chiquita’s largest port operation in North America, handling a fully containerized service between Central America and Wilmington, which regularly discharges bananas, pineapples, and other tropical fruits and vegetables, supplying more than 200 million U.S. and Canadian consumers. Chiquita currently makes a weekly vessel call to Port Wilmington.

Port Wilmington is a leading gateway for imported perishable cargo and operates one of North America’s largest on-dock cold storage complexes. The Port is operated by Enstructure under a long-term concession agreement as part of a public-private partnership at Port Wilmington with the owner, Diamond State Port Corporation (DSPC), a State of Delaware entity.

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