NTSB: Inadequate Firefighting Training Led to Deaths in Newark Ship Fire

By Daniel Katzive (gCaptain) –

New Jersey firefighters who responded to a July 2023 fire aboard a RoRo cargo ship at Port Newark lacked adequate training in responding to shipboard fires, according to the conclusions of a National Transportation Safety Board investigation (NTSB).

The fire on the vessel Grande Costa d’Avorio, owned and operated by Grimaldi Group, broke out as longshoremen were loading used vehicles for export to West Africa. Two firemen died after they became disoriented in poor visibility below decks and were trapped in tight spaces between cars.

The NTSB staff’s conclusions and recommendations were approved by the agency’s board in a public hearing on Tuesday and included a call for better training and familiarization with shipboard environments for land-based firefighters. In addition to firefighter training, the NTSB also found fault with the design of one of the ship’s large hydraulic garage doors and with the vehicle used by the port operator to push non-operating cars onto the vessel.

The NTSB’s conclusions on firefighter training would likely not come as a surprise to anyone who had watched public hearings on the incident held by the Coast Guard a year ago. Officials told investigators at those hearings that few, if any, of the firefighters, captains, and chiefs who responded to the incident had had any training on shipboard fires or had even been on a large ship at all. This included the members of the land-based engine company trained to operate the Newark department’s 53-foot fireboat, who responded with their engine on land as the boat was out of service that evening.

It was only when the New York Fire Department arrived with their 140-foot fireboat and a complement of marine firefighters later in the evening that expertise on shipboard firefighting made it to the scene. As Newark’s deputy chief and on-scene incident commander said at the 2024 hearing, “A member from their marine division came over to me… he was pretty much just educating me because I really had no knowledge of how to do stuff with this boat.”

The NTSB investigators faulted the Newark chiefs for sending firefighters into the fire zone on the ship, which had been flooded with CO? by the ship’s crew. Sending the firemen below decks not only put them in danger, according to the NTSB, but also exacerbated the fire as sealed doors were opened for access and to run hose lines, allowing CO? to escape — contrary to marine firefighting best practice. The investigators said the firefighters should have focused on cooling the perimeter, attempting to seal the compartment, and allowing the CO? to work.

In terms of the proximate cause of the fire, the NTSB found that an overheated transmission on a Jeep Wrangler being used by longshoremen to push non-operational cars up the ramps onto the ship probably leaked fluid onto the Jeep’s engine block. The agency found that the use of this passenger vehicle by Ports America, rather than an approved “power industrial truck,” was contrary to Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules.

Opinion: What Two Fires In 2020 Should Have Warned Us About in Port of Newark

The investigators did not find fault with the response of the Italian-flagged ship’s crew, who fought the fire with shipboard equipment, shut down ventilation systems, and flooded the compartment with CO?, all according to established procedures.

The NTSB did find that firefighting efforts were hampered by the inability to close the large hydraulic garage door connecting the car storage hold to the ship’s weather deck, which allowed CO? to escape. The controls for the door were located inside the compartment, and a crew member would have had to exit through the smoke and fire area after closing it. RINA, the ship’s classification authority, apparently took the view that because the door was closed while the ship was underway, controls did not need to be located outside of the compartment, but the NTSB argues in its report that a correct reading of Safety of Life at Sea regulations would mandate the ability to close the door from outside the containment zone while the door is open in port.

The NTSB staff said that some of the recommendations in its report are already being implemented by the parties to the investigation. Ports America is no longer using passenger vehicles as pushers to load non-operating cars, and Grimaldi Group has modified its RoRo vessels so that hydraulic doors can be closed from outside the compartments. Training efforts may still be a work in progress, however. Port Authority of New York New Jersey director Beth Rooney said at a recent 2025 State of the Port event that the authority had worked with local first responders to provide classroom and shipboard fire training to 1,300 local first responders in 2024, “with a lot more to come.” But NTSB staff said at Tuesday’s hearing that so far Newark firefighters had only been required to complete a 4-hour online familiarization class, which the NTSB board chair called inadequate.

The NTSB said its final report would be made public in about two weeks. The Coast Guard, which was the primary investigative body for this incident, also has a report in the works, and NTSB officials said they expect that to be released in the near future as well.

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