No one was injured when a ferry caught fire between Nova Scotia and PEI late Friday.
In a release, Don Cormier, vice president of Northumberland Ferries Ltd., said the incident occurred when the MV Holiday Island was making a scheduled crossing from Caribou, NS to Wood Islands, PEI at 10 a.m.
Cormier said that shortly after 11 a.m., as it reached the Wood Islands, a fire broke out in the ship’s engine room.
“The ship’s crew and security systems brought the fire under control. The Captain took necessary precautions and dropped both the anchors and guided the ship on a soft shoal outside the port entrance to Wood Islands,” he said, adding that there were no reports of injuries to customers or crew.
In a release issued after 1 p.m., Cormier said the company is suspending the rest of the ferry crossing for the day “to exercise caution and focus on bringing passengers to shore safely”.
“We apologize for the inconvenience caused to our customers and at this time our focus is on the safety of our passengers, ensuring that our passengers are safely removed from shore and the safety of our crew,” he said.
In a tweet just before noon, the PEI RCMP said officials are assisting with “incident offshore near Wood Island Ferry Terminal” and added that the terminal is currently closed. It asked members of the public to avoid the area.
200 people rescued
In a series of tweets, the Halifax Joint Rescue Coordination Center said it responded to a distress call at 11:17 a.m., indicating that Holiday Island “catched a fire in their engine room and later ran around.”
It said 14 Wing Greenwood search and rescue aircraft as well as Canadian Coast Guard ships responded to the scene and disembarked 182 passengers and 18 crew members safely. Seven local firefighters are on board to douse the fire.
“Local fire, police and paramedics are on the scene,” the JRCC said at 1:15 p.m. “Since all passengers have been moved ashore, local officials and ferry operators are responsible for any updates.”
Sean McLaughlin, a Nova Scotian who had spent the week traveling on PEI, showed up at the Wood Islands terminal shortly after 11 a.m. to get the ferry back home.
“When we got to the terminal to check our reservation, you could see a lot of black and brown smoke, clearly coming from the ferry,” he said.
McLaughlin said the boat appeared to be approaching the dock at the time.
“The man at the terminal said things were not looking good and we should turn around and be ready to go,” he said.
From the parking lot, McLaughlin reported seeing crews unloading lifeboats and inflating the emergency slide to unload passengers from the boat. He has since set out to try his luck at Confederation Bridge.
Trish Carter, who lives in Wood Islands near the ferry terminal, said she was outside her home on Friday morning when she saw “a huge amount of black smoke” coming from the ferry.
Carter, who used to be a volunteer firefighter in BC, rushed to the scene to see if she could help. When she arrived, emergency personnel began arriving at the scene and lowering the lifeboats into the water.
He said the passengers were deboarded and taken to shore with the help of a nearby lobster boat.
Carter said he was “thrilled” that the rescue was successful and no one was injured.
“All the personnel on the yacht are trained to handle this way – you’d hope that would never happen, but clearly their training was fully utilized and they were able to get to the passengers safely. were,” she said.
“I’m just grateful that no one was injured and everyone pitched in and responded to what was probably one of the biggest emergencies in the area for many years, I’m sure.”
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