Marina Fires

[Zilpo55]

I heard of at least two very bad marina fires during the three winter storms that went through last week. Stuff like this keeps me up at night. The most common cause is improper and/or unattended space heaters. Most slip rental contracts prohibit space heaters, but enforcement is almost impossible.

Patoka Lake, Indiana:
https://www.wdrb.com/news/wdrb-video...0b67c278d.html

Beaver Lake, Arkansas:
https://www.5newsonline.com/article/...9-07b84ea3f66c

Meridith Marina, New Hampshire:
https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...1a63b776f.html

[JTAlberts]

I heard of at least two very bad marina fires during the three winter storms that went through last week. Stuff like this keeps me up at night. The most common cause is improper and/or unattended space heaters. Most slip rental contracts prohibit space heaters, but enforcement is almost impossible.

Patoka Lake, Indiana:
https://www.wdrb.com/news/wdrb-video...0b67c278d.html

Beaver Lake, Arkansas:
https://www.5newsonline.com/article/...9-07b84ea3f66c

Meridith Marina, New Hampshire:
https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...1a63b776f.html

When rehabbing my boat this winter I left my space heater on for lunch. When I came back and hour the later the plug was almost too hot to touch.

[Ike]

Most boat fires are electrical, especially in the winter. Just as JT said people leave a space heater on, or they leave the boat plugged into shore power. I could show you some really frightening photos I took of a burned out boat back in the late 90's that burned in the marina across the street from USCG HQ in Wash DC. The person left it plugged in and left a space heater running. You can see it in the photos. But what really set the fire off was it overloaded the shore power cord and it melted down. I looked at a lot of these types of fires during my Coast Guard career. The only thing that should be energized on your boat in a marina is the automatic bilge pump. (and maybe an alarm)

Electrical fires are usually caused by a high resistance connections, often the shore power plug on the boat. It either corrodes causing resistance and heat, or is loosened by winter storms and creates a high resistance between the tangs on the plug and the ones in the socket. Add to that that people don't often check on the boat for long periods (relying on the marina to do that) and you get a recipe for a fire.