Fixed and portable systems, foam and the PFAS phase-out, detection and breathing apparatus. Fire safety is the leading detainable deficiency category under the Tokyo MOU. These articles cover the FSS Code in practice, how to choose suppression for a given space, and the inspection findings that recur year after year.
Two pieces of breathing equipment on a ship look similar and are constantly confused. One lets a firefighter enter a burning space. The other only buys a few minutes to escape one. Mixing them up, or letting either run down, is a deficiency that recurs on inspection after inspection.
A fire in a ship’s engine room has to be fought by a system that was chosen years earlier, on a drawing board. Pick the wrong extinguishing system for the space, and the mistake is built into the vessel. Here is how CO2, water mist, and foam are matched to the hazard.
PFOS foam is banned from ships from 2026, and the EU rule bites harder still. Why swapping AFFF for fluorine-free foam is not a simple refill.
The IMO Fire Safety Systems Code is the detailed technical rulebook that turns SOLAS Chapter II-2 fire protection obligations into specific performance, installation, testing, and maintenance requirements that surveyors, class societies, and flag states can verify. For shipowners, understanding what the Code requires in practice, and where compliance most commonly breaks down, is essential for survey readiness, PSC performance, and crew safety.
Offshore platform fire suppression is not a one-system decision. Each area of a platform presents a distinct fire hazard profile, and matching the right suppression technology to that profile is as important as the system’s raw performance. A system that is wrong for the application is not just ineffective. In some cases, it is dangerous.
Fire safety deficiencies are consistently among the leading causes of detainable PSC findings on ships. The same non-compliances appear repeatedly across vessel types and flag states, engine room housekeeping failures, inoperable detection systems, structural breaches, and fire drills that test paperwork rather than people. Understanding where these gaps occur is the first step to closing them before an inspector finds them.
