SEATTLE — A destructive boat dry storage fire on Wednesday near Ship Canal Bridge had major effects on those directly impacted by the fire, but fortunately, the Washington Department of Ecology said it did not result in an oil spill.
The department said first responders didn't observe oil sheen or debris in the water.
KING 5 asked Dr. Joel Baker, a UW Tacoma professor and the science director for the Center for Urban Waters, to weigh in on the factors responders must explore in an incident like this.
"The potential concerns are fairly obvious in the sense that, the boat's on fire, you need to worry about what's going to come off the boat, just the physical destruction of the boat itself and the surrounding structure, obviously stuff falling into the water," Baker said. "If you think about the smoke and the debris falling into the water and the impacts that might have, and on top of that you think about firefighting response itself, and the [kind of foam that is used]."
Baker said he understands that the Seattle Fire Department no longer uses an older class of firefighting foams that included chemicals that would not degrade.
"They use a new foam, so that's the good news, so people shouldn't picture the foam in the water in this case or any other case and think that's the same thing causing the problems with the forever chemicals," Baker said.
He said the new foam passes all the required regulatory requirements and appears nontoxic to the extent that it's been tested.
"I trust the fire department is using the safest stuff they can buy, having said that there's lots of history of commercial products with undisclosed ingredients later causing problems for the environment," Baker said.
Baker said over time, stricter regulations and practices have been introduced to control how fuel is brought onto a boat, how it's stored, fire containment on boats and related factors.
"The response to oil leakage and spills from boats is a highly regulated, pretty well-run system in the United States, they don't say that about all our systems but it's in pretty good shape," Baker said.