Sat 6 May 2006
Firefighters flown in to tackle cruise ship blaze in English Channel
A BLAZE onboard a cruise ship in the English Channel sparked a full-scale alert early today.
The fire broke out at 3.47am onboard the Calypso, which was carrying 708 people, near Beachy Head.
Firefighters flew out to the ship, reported to be about 20 miles from the coast, and had put out the blaze soon after 6am.
There were no casualties and it was not necessary to evacuate the ship. The cause of the fire, which was tackled by East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, was not known.
Len Richards, deputy chief fire officer of East Sussex Fire Service, said: "The ship's crew used the fixed installations on board the vessel to initially attack the fire.
"The fire was contained to the port engine and the engine room area itself."
Alan Bishop, a Solent coastguard, said there had been no plans to abandon ship. He said: "The ship had its lifeboats out but not lowered and we monitored the situation."
The fire was the first live job for the new Maritime Incident Response Group (MIRG).
A spokeswoman for East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service later said 18 firefighters were still on board the ship to cool the blaze area, now thought to have involved the starboard engine. She said: "Indications are that the fire is out but crews have to enter the engine room to confirm that."
She confirmed that there had been no casualties.
Related topic
A cruise ship caught fire 32 km (20 miles) off the southeast coast of England. The blaze started in the engine-room of the Calypso, which had 708 passengers and crew onboard. 

The passengers were mainly Dutch.

Specialist firefighters transported by helicopter from the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service tackled the fire.

It was tugged to Southampton by the Anglican Monarch, a tug boat jointly operated by England and France. The relieved passengers left to boat 16 hours after the fire started. 

"A team will be going onboard to assess the situation, so time will tell," said the Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokeswoman.

There were no causualties and no evacuation.