Fire Safety is a key area of concern during PSC inspections. It is widely known that fire is one of the worst case scenarios for an on board emergency. PSC data analysis from the last five years shows that there is a lot of concern for onboard fire safety while ships have still several issues to address in this area.
Taking into consideration analysis of Table 1, we may notice that fire safety remains a key PSC finding that appears in the top 3 Deficiency Categories for five consecutive years. In particular, the Fire Safety Deficiency Category (Code: 07###) involves 26 different deficiency codes covering mostly equipment and system issues.
The operational aspect of fire safety (fire drills) is covered by code 04109 and is assigned to Emergency Systems deficiency category. In that respect, PSC codes 07 plus the 04109 should be taken into consideration during the review of Fleet’s PSC performance for Fire Safety.
During a PSC inspection, Port State Control Officer will check the condition, availability and working status of the fire fighting equipment and systems, as well as related documentation.
Source: https://safety4sea.com/cm-psc-focus-fire-safety/