US port firefighters still lack the shipboard training, coordination and activation protocols needed to handle vessel fires effectively — and the federal watchdog says the legal framework is falling behind a fleet rapidly shifting to batteries and alternative fuels.

The Government Accountability Office reported Sept. 29 that the US Coast Guard logged 886 nearshore marine fires between 2015 and 2025. Of those, 206 — nearly one quarter — resulted in a death, an injury, more than $200,000 in damage or the total loss of a vessel.

The report lands three years after the July 2023 fire aboard the Italian-flagged ro-ro Grande Costa D'Avorio at Port Newark. Two Newark firefighters, Augusto Acabou and Wayne Brooks Jr., died after becoming disoriented in smoke and the unfamiliar layout of the vessel. Several others were injured. The blaze burned for five days and caused an estimated $23 million in damage, according to the Coast Guard.

A fragmented response structure

Ship fires differ from most emergencies ashore in one decisive way: responsibility is split. The Coast Guard generally coordinates the federal response, while local fire departments conduct the actual firefighting, often supported by vessel operators, port authorities and commercial salvage and marine firefighting companies.

That structure, GAO found, can leave municipal firefighters confronting unfamiliar vessels, confined spaces and hazardous cargo without sufficient shipboard experience. The Grande Costa D'Avorio casualty made the point starkly. The last training exercise offered to the firefighters who responded had taken place nine years before the accident — and just one of the responding firefighters had attended.

Access is the bottleneck. Coast Guard officials in six sectors told GAO investigators that firefighters need more hands-on training, including vessel tours and realistic shipboard exercises. Fire chiefs said arranging access to ships is difficult because vessels spend limited time in port and crews cannot board for training without an owner's approval.

The Coast Guard established a National Salvage and Marine Firefighting Task Force in January 2024 and has since developed online training and other tools. But as of September, GAO said, the task force had not developed guidance for a hands-on exercise program.

The eight-hour delay

Commercial consequences extend beyond the dock. GAO highlighted how slowly vessel response plans — VRPs — get activated. In the Grande Costa D'Avorio casualty, the plan was not activated until roughly eight hours after the fire began, and only after land-based firefighters had already boarded the ship. The Coast Guard's own investigation concluded earlier activation might have limited the fire's growth and reduced damage.

GAO said Coast Guard officials and marine firefighting providers described a broader "wait and see" problem: vessel operators may hesitate to activate response plans because of the expense of mobilizing commercial firefighting and salvage resources. For carriers, that hesitation can turn a containable incident into a multi-day casualty; for cargo interests, it raises the stakes on every port call at a US terminal.

Alternative fuels outpace the law

The report also flags a regulatory gap that predates the alternative-fuel era. Current law limits the Coast Guard's ability to require some nontank vessels using alternative fuels — including battery-powered ferries — to maintain response plans covering hazardous-substance emergencies. GAO noted those legal provisions were written before alternative-fuel vessels became widespread.

The fleet is scaling fast. The worldwide battery-powered vessel fleet grew from 142 ships in 2017 to 1,006 in 2024, according to data cited by GAO, with another 1,584 vessels on order through 2027.

Lithium-ion batteries pose particular difficulties because thermal runaway can produce intense heat, toxic gases and fires that are difficult to extinguish. The risk has drawn increased attention following several major casualties, including the 2025 fire and sinking of the car carrier Morning Midas in the North Pacific.

Recommendations on the table

GAO recommended that Congress consider changing federal law to require nontank vessels using alternative fuels to prepare response plans for worst-case hazardous-substance discharges. It also issued five recommendations to the Coast Guard: assign marine firefighting coordination duties to specific field personnel; work with local fire departments to arrange vessel tours and exercises; create a system for sharing lessons and best practices; provide clearer guidance on when vessel response plans should be activated; and issue regulations requiring tank vessels to prepare response plans covering worst-case hazardous-substance discharges, not just oil spills.

The Department of Homeland Security agreed with all five recommendations.

With the battery-vessel orderbook running to 2027 and congressional action required to close the nontank VRP gap, the policy trajectory points toward stricter response-plan mandates — and toward higher expectations on carriers and port authorities to get firefighters aboard ships before a casualty, not after.