Icon of the Sea, which is under construction at Meyer Turku shipyard, received a fire alarm after ten in the morning!
The cause of the fire alarm was a fire that broke out on one of the ship’s staircases. As a precaution, all around 2,500 people working on the ship were evacuated from the ship. As STT reports, the fire broke out in the structures of the upper deck of the ship.
The fire was extinguished by the Icon of the Sea fire department using a manual extinguisher. Works on the ship, with the exception of the fire area, could continue for more than an hour after the fire alarm was activated.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. The material damage caused by the fire is estimated to be minor, according to the shipyard.
Anna Hakala, communications manager at the shipyard, told Ile in the morning that the evacuation of the Icon of the Sea caused a slight delay in the work.
- Of course, this caused delays when the employees had to leave the ship. It’s already back to work there. We are investigating the damage.
Icon of the Seas is a cruise ship under construction for Royal Caribbean International, which will be the flagship of the Icon class. It is planned to enter traffic in 2024.
The rescue service praises the ship’s safety planning
Duty Chief Juha Virto of the Varsinais-Finland Rescue Service said this afternoon that the initial extinguishment had been carried out in an exemplary manner.
- The fire was brought under control and it was up to the rescue service to make sure that the people near the fire were all saved. After that, we used various technical devices to determine whether the fire managed to spread to the rooms surrounding the fire. Once it was confirmed, the task was over pretty quickly for the rescue service.
Virto praises the yard’s security measures.
- The good safety planning of the ship can be seen in the fact that there were no injuries during the evacuation. The security arrangements are quite well managed there.