I had been a career firefighter for only about four months. I was sitting at my station, having a cup of coffee at the end of my 24 hour duty shift when a call came in for a "boat" fire. as soon as we pulled out of our station, we knew it was more than a boat fire. Arriving at the scene at Total Petroleum, we saw the tanker "Jupiter" ablaze, with flame shooting into the air. I began to wonder what I was getting myself into with my new career a firefighter.
Over the next days and weeks, I would have the chance to set up various unmanned water streams, take draft readings on the Jupiter, help to assemble and deploy oil booms, sit on the old D&M Railroad Bridge manning a line as the US Coast Guard Cutter Bramble along with a crew from Boots & Coots began to finally extinguish the fire, and stand by as crews from Marine Pollution Control pumped the remaining fuel from the vessel after the fire was extinguished.
As most of us know, an investigation showed that the fire and subsequent explosion was caused by the suction caused by the passing freighter, Buffalo and from rotted pilings at the Total dock. The offloading hose parted from the dock as the Jupiter was pulled away and the fire began.
These photos are from my collection and were taken from the dock at Total and from a USCG Helo during a flight with one of our firefighters to overview the scene:
WOW! I was a crew member on USCGC BRAMBLE when this happened, It was quite the undertaking and the ship was in 24 hour operation mode, I never saw so much foam! Please contact me as I would love to see more of these photographs,
ReplyDeleteKenneth M. McCrocklin (RET)
kennethmccrocklin@yahoo.com
I was the Coast Guardsmen who climbed aboard the MV Jupiter's Anchor to secure a 1" steel cable so we could pull the ship in to shallow water and ground her. I will never forget that day. I didn't know whether I would survive the operation. Thank God we all did survive and accomplish the mission.
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