APL ship on fire off coast of Vietnam

   Firefighters on Monday were continuing to fight a fire on the containership APL Vancouver that originally broke out in one of its cargo holds at 4:30 a.m. Thursday.
   APL said the fire broke out while the 9,200-TEU ship was on passage from Shekou, China to Singapore.
   An APL spokesman said, “Shore support and firefighting tugs have been deployed while Vietnamese Coast Guard vessels are on site. Additional resources including equipment, external specialized firefighters and salvage master have been mobilized. Crew members have all been reported safe.”
   A video of the fire is available here.

   Bluewater Reporting shows the company is one of six deployed in an intra-Asia loop between ports in East Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

   The website FleetMon reports said the ship had 4,515 containers on board and was located in Phan Rang Bay, which is in southern Vietnam, north of Ho Chi Minh City.

   The fire on the APL Vancouver is the latest in a series of serious ship fires in less than a month.

   Hapag-Lloyd’s Yantian Express caught fire off of Nova Scotia on Jan. 3 on a voyage from the Far East. The 7,150-TEU ship is currently moored off of Freeport, Bahamas.
   The full extent of damage to the ship is unknown, but Hapag-Lloyd has declared general average. 
   On New Year’s Eve, the 650-foot car carrier Sincerity Ace caught fire in the north Pacific. In that fire, five of the ship’s 21 crew members died.