Portable fire-fighting equipment and breathing apparatus

Fire safety is the largest single group of port state control findings. In the Paris MoU region, deficiencies under SOLAS chapter II-2 made up 17.2% of everything inspectors recorded in 2024. During the joint Tokyo MOU and Paris MoU fire safety campaign in 2023, Tokyo MOU inspectors alone logged 392 deficiencies against “fire fighting equipment and appliances”. Much of that is the kit in this course: extinguishers, hoses and nozzles, breathing apparatus, escape sets and fire-fighter’s outfits.

Neglected equipment does more than fail a survey. In 2022 a deck officer on a tanker was killed when a 17-year-old foam extinguisher, condemned for corrosion, burst at its base as he discharged it. The flag state investigation found that eight badly corroded extinguishers had been passed at the ship’s annual service, only for the crew to condemn them two weeks later.

The course works from the regulations themselves: SOLAS chapter II-2, the Fire Safety Systems (FSS) Code, IMO’s maintenance guidelines (MSC.1/Circ.1432 as amended and resolution A.951(23)) and the flag notices that tighten them. Each lesson gives the rules with citations, the intervals and numbers you need on deck, the findings inspectors write up most often, and a short exercise.

What you will learn

• Find the right rule for any piece of portable fire-fighting equipment: SOLAS II-2, the FSS Code, the IMO guidelines or your flag’s notice.
• Choose and place extinguishers for each fire class, and avoid the agents that make a fire, or the space, more dangerous.
• Plan and check the annual service, the five-yearly test discharge and the ten-yearly hydraulic test of extinguishers, and spot a unit that must be condemned.
• Keep SCBA and EEBDs ready for use: weekly and annual checks, breathing air quality, cylinder testing and spare charges.
• Inspect fire hoses, nozzles, hydrants and the international shore connection the way a surveyor or PSC officer does.
• Check that fire-fighter’s outfits and fire-party radios meet the FSS Code and the 2014 SOLAS amendments.