A live evacuation drill of a container vessel was carried out for the first time at the Port of Immingham as part of ongoing emergency testing at the Humber’s busiest port.

Associated British Ports and Humberside Fire and Rescue successfully carried out a rescue on one of customer A2B’s vessels in Immingham Container Terminal . The scenario was based on a fire in one of the bulk heads at the front of the container ship to test the effectiveness of procedures. They also carried out a search and rescue of a man down.

Simon Bird, Regional Director for the Humber said: “This is the first time we have undertaken this kind of training exercise and it’s important for us as a port operator to be confident that in extreme circumstances we have the expertise and knowledge of the emergency services.

“Giving them access to our plant, but also to our customers provides confidence in our operations team that we have all bases covered should anything concerning happen because it is where knowledge and skills are gained, to save lives if ever needed.”

Wm Steven Smith, Immingham East Green Watch at Humberside Fire and Rescue Service said: “The scenario we completed is one of the biggest risks we face as a fire service, what we call a low frequency high risk event.

“This type of partnership and training, allows both of our organisations to test our procedure in a real-world environment, allowing our teams to appreciate the associated risk with fires on board cargo vessels.”

Arthur Groeneweg, Marine & Crewing Manager, A2B added: “For A2B-online Ship Management it is important to practice with fire departments and port authorities as in a simulated environment we can test our emergency preparedness.

“In the ports of our operations, the close involvement with the port authorities and partners is an added value, which allow us to excel and improve. Feedback and lessons learned will be shared and used to set our future goals, it is supporting our ambition. With renewed energy we are looking forward to the next cooperative drill.”

The exercise involved four appliances from Immingham, Grimsby and Scunthorpe plus two incident command vehicles and involved 18 personnel.

Last year Humberside Fire and rescue Services carried out an evacuation drill from one of the ship to shore cranes at Immingham Container Terminal. Further exercises are planned for the year.