Fast response saves neighboring boats as catamaran burns in Road Harbour

A 46-foot catamaran fire in Road Harbour could have swept through a packed anchorage if one person had not made a split-second decision to free it from the dock and let it drift clear of the surrounding boats.

Acting Deputy Chief Fire Officer Marcus Malone said the blaze started at The Moorings, and the move away from the dock was central to limiting the damage. The Virgin Islands Fire and Rescue Service received the call at 12:42 p.m. and was on scene by 12:50 p.m., finding a response already underway from mariners, salvage crews and dive-service personnel who were working to keep the burning vessel from becoming a harbor-wide emergency.

Husky Salvage and Towing and Commercial Dive Services were among the responders that helped manage the fire at water level. Crews aboard their own vessels used firefighting equipment to attack the flames while the catamaran was kept moving away from neighboring boats and dock infrastructure. The boat ultimately sank, but by then the priority had shifted to protecting the vessels berthed nearby and preventing the kind of cascading damage that can happen fast in a crowded marina.

The incident in Road Harbour echoed an earlier January fire at Nanny Cay Marina involving Kelly Jane, a 67-foot aluminum ferry-type craft converted into a houseboat. In that case, Husky Salvage and Towing again moved the burning vessel away from the marina, and the fire was extinguished in about half an hour. Marine Safety Investigation and Reporting Authority officials later said that response reduced the risk to nearby vessels and marine infrastructure, while noting no immediately visible problem with the shore-power connection and saying onboard batteries and other electrical equipment had not yet been verified.

Taken together, the two fires show how quickly a dockside emergency can turn into a harbor-safety problem. The difference between a single-boat loss and a multi-boat disaster can be measured in minutes, a tow line, and whether neighboring crews are ready with pumps, hoses and a clear escape path. In Road Harbour, those pieces came together in time to keep the damage from spreading beyond one catamaran.