The 7th April 1990, 02:00 in the night a fire occurred in the passenger ferry Scandinavian Star. The fire developed to a catastrophe killing 159 people.

The ferry had 4 passengers deck; the top deck being the restaurant deck and the lowest was the car deck. The ship was not equipped with sprinkler systems or any other automatic fire fighting system; except for the car deck system, nor any automatic fire detection or alarm system. The crew members were of different nationalities and communicated purely and they were not trained for fire fighting or rescue operations.

The tasks of the investigation were all together to establish the cause of the fire or the circumstances of the start, where it started, when it started, how it developed, establish the important factors making the basis for a catastrophe and how to avoid such disasters in the future.

The investigation
The ventilation system was based on a few suction outlets in the corridor system and the inlet distribution were in the cabins. That means that the air was pressed from the cabins to the corridors through slits in the cabin doors.
The ferry was also equipped with push buttons in the corridors that should be used by anyone detecting fire. A panel on the commando bridge received the signals. The officer in charge should then close the fire doors in each end of this corridor by pushing a button on a panel. The doors were kept open by magnetic traps.

The corridors were quite narrow; 90 cm wide. The surface lining of the corridors consisted of plastic laminate of 1.6mm thickness with a melamine finishing layer. The lining was covering a 2.5 cm thick asbestos board.
The laminate was tested and the results showed that the calorific potential was higher than the internationally accepted value of 45 MJ/m2 (48 MJ/m2) and that the criterion of limited heat release was not satisfied. The criterion for limited smoke production was, however, satisfied.

Tests showed that huge amounts of hydrogen-cyanide (HCN) was produced when the surface lining material combusted. The concentration in the breeding gas would cause death of people within 5 minutes.

The conditions on board the ship were reconstructed in the 1:1 test mock up in NBLs laboratory (see photos underneath), with exactly the same materials and dimensions as in the real ship. The ventilation conditions were also reconstructed.

The experiments showed that the combination of the narrow corridor and the reaction to fire properties of the laminate onto the asbestos board set the corridor very rapidly in a flash-over situation. It was mainly the surface laminate lining (1.6 mm) with its melamine finishing that gave the energy to the fire and the production of the lethal gases. The fact that the substrate of asbestos had low heat conductivity also contributed to the flash over conditions.

All the above mention facts about the ship were of importance to the outcome of the fire and the majority of them had to be included to get the disaster. 2 more factors in addition to the above mentioned had to be included to get the outcome; a fire door to the car deck had to be blocked partly open and an arsonist had to be onboard.
That means that such a disaster is not likely to happen in the future.

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