In a recent Written Parliamentary Question submitted to the Ministry of Defence, Luke Pollard MP, representing Labour (Co-op) for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, inquired about the frequency of fires on Royal Navy warships from 2020 to the present year.
The question, posed on 19 March 2024, sought detailed statistics on the number of fires recorded annually on these vessels up to 19 March 2024.
James Cartlidge, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, addressed this question on the 27th March 2024. In his response, Minister Cartlidge provided the following figures:
| Year | Number of Reported Fires |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 24 |
| 2021 | 23 |
| 2022 | 19 |
| 2023 | 24 |
| 2024 (as of 22 March 2024) | 5 |
The Minister noted, “All of the fires listed were considered minor and were extinguished by first responder firefighters.”
This underlines the efficacy of the emergency response measures in place aboard Royal Navy warships, ensuring that all incidents were promptly and effectively managed without leading to major consequences.
Nothing story – minor fires quickly extinguished by the duty watch are nothing new on warships from my time in the mob!
It’s about 1 per major ship per year!!!!!!!!!
This sort of stuff happens. I would be suprised if it didn’t.
Doesn’t even warrant a mention in Navy News psssst Jack ” did you just light a fart ” and that’s about the sum of it .Nothing to see move along who wants a swap draft
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Probably something matelots take for granted but is a bigger thing for civvies. We practiced for this quite a lot as I recall.
During my time serving with Armoured, Artillery and Engineer units, whilst not a regular occurrence, it would be fair to say that there were at least 2 vehicle fires a year, resulting from mechanical failure and then fuel or oil catching fire. Most were extinguished with the old hand held BCF fire extinguishers, and only rarely was the āon-boardā BCF system used. As others have said, a bit of a non story.
In the days of smoking inside, I would say most fires were caused by cigarettes being stubbed out in the āmetalā litter bins either in the offices or accommodation.
I was briefly attached to the firefighting school of HMS Phoenix and I can say that the royal navy sailor is the best at all kinds of damage control issues that they could be faced by.