Electric car ‘sets huge cargo ship on fire in North Sea’: One sailor dead and 23 evacuated from burning 18,500-tonne container ship carrying 3,000 cars

At least one crew member died and several others were injured overnight after fire ripped through a huge car carrier ship off the Dutch coast – with the cause believed to have been an electric vehicle catching alight.

Rescue helicopters and boats evacuated 23 crew members from the Panamanian-registered Fremantle Highway, a 18,500-tonne car-carrying vessel with almost 3,000 vehicles on-board. Officials have said there are ‘many’ wounded.

At least seven crew members jumped overboard and were rescued from the water, while the rest were airlifted by helicopter. 

As of midday, the ship was said to be burning out of control in the North Sea and rescue vessels were working to save it from sinking close to an important habitat. 

‘Around midnight the Coast Guard received a report that the Fremantle Highway is on fire,’ the Dutch coastguard said. ‘The crew tried to put out the fire themselves, but failed. Unfortunately one person died and several others were injured.

The coastguard said that the incident happened about 17 miles (14.5 nautical miles) north of the northern island of Ameland. Images taken from shore showed a long plume of grey smoke drifting over the sea from the stricken 650-foot ship.

All crew were evacuated to the nearby Dutch port of Lauwersoog after failing to extinguish the blaze on the vast ship bound for Egypt.

Officials added that the Fremantle Highway was still on fire, and that emergency services are still present near the blazing ship. ‘The blaze is still raging on board,’ the coastguard said, adding that the ship was listing.

Salvage vessels were on the scene trying to put out the blaze and prevent the ship from sinking, the NOS national broadcaster said.

Specialised firefighters were called from Rotterdam, who would be taken to the ship by helicopter. But the fire developed so quickly that it was no longer safe to bring those firefighters on board. 

A tug vessel has however managed to attach a cable to the stricken ship to prevent it from drifting and blocking an important sailing route into Germany, the NOS said. 

‘We are taking into account all scenarios,’ a coastguard official told the NOS.

The coastgard said it recieved reports that the ship was on fire at around midnight.

The cargo ship was transporting 2,857 cars from Bremen, Germany to Port Said, Egypt, 25 of which were electric cars. It was one of the electric cars that caught fire, a spokesperson for the coastguard told Reuters. 

‘Currently there are a lot of vessels on scene to monitor the situation and to see how to get the fire under control,’ coast guard spokesperson Lea Versteeg said. 

‘It’s carrying cars, 2,857 of which 25 are electrical cars, which made the fire even more difficult. It’s not easy to keep that kind of fire under control and even in such a vessel it’s not easy,’ he added. 

Authorities in Germany were also on alert, German news agency dpa reported.

‘We are monitoring the situation,’ a spokesman for the German sea disaster command in the northern city of Cuxhaven said adding that they had offered support to the Dutch authorities. He said rescue ships and task forces were ready to help if needed, but that no decision had been made on whether to send them.

The Fremantle Highway is currently close to Ameland, one of four ecologically sensitive Frisian islands, situated in the Waddensee area just north of the Dutch mainland. 

Also called the Frisian Islands, the area has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has a rich diversity of more than 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species.

This included more than 140 species of fish of which some 20 spent their entire life in the tidal areas along the islands’ famous mud flats.

The area also has a large seal and porpoise population.

Should the Fremantle Highway sink, ‘it would be a disaster of the highest order,’ the daily tabloid De Telegraaf said.

‘Currently several parties including salvagers and the Dutch authorities are looking at minimising the damage as much as possible,’ the Coast Guard said. 

Some 340 containers tumbled off one of the world’s largest container ships after a storm in the same area in early 2019, littering kilometres of pristine coastline with plastic and polystyrene.

The most serious incident in recent times off the busy Dutch coast happened in December 2012 when the Bahamian-flagged car carrier Baltic Ice collided with a container ship and sank.

Eleven sailors were killed in that incident.

In 2022, a fire-ravaged US-bound cargo ship that was transporting thousands of supercars including Porsches sunk in the middle of the Atlantic.

The Felicity Ace sank about 250 miles off Portugal’s Azores Islands as it was being towed, just 13 days after a fire broke out on board.

The ship was transporting electric and non-electric vehicles, it was reported at the time. Suspicion on lithium batteries used in electric vehicles. 

Porsche lost 1,117 cars on the ship, Audi claimed a loss of 1,944 vehicles, Bentley lost 189, Lamborghini lost 85, and Volkswagen lost 561 cars.

The ship was also carrying fifteen Lamborghini Aventador LP 780-4 Ultimae supercars, with a rough retail price of more than $500,000 each.

And earlier this month, two firefighters died in the US after getting trapped while battling a huge blaze of a cargo ship carrying 5,000 cars to Port Newark. 

Responding to the initial blaze, firefighters found five to seven vehicles already on fire when they reached the 10th floor of the cargo ship on July 5.

The blaze quickly extended to the 11th and 12th floors, and as firefighters were pushed back by the intense heat, two of them were lost.