a new three-part investigation by NJ Advanced media is Raising disturbing questions about the deadly July 5th fire aboard a cargo ship at Port Newark that's where a vessel loaded with 1,200 used cars Bound for Africa burst into flames killing two new Yark firefighters as they worked through dangerous conditions trying to put out the blaze well the cause is still being investigated by the US Coast Guard and the national Transportation safety board and the results could take a year before being made public but after sifting through court filings public records and hours of radio Transmissions investigative reporter Ted Sherman found the port fire was a battle the firefighters never saw coming and one they weren't prepared to fight Ted joins me now well Ted Sherman uh it's a pleasure to get to sit down and talk with you tell me just first after looking through all of these records did Newark and the fire department have have a plan of action when they arrived on scene that night no the records that we looked at clearly show that they did not have a clue as to what to do in fact we spoke to firefighting experts and and even without the reports that we had they they said specifically that that they came onto the site and didn't know what to do next but then when you go and read through the the uh incident reports that we obtained through public records request it says it all out in black and white in fact a number of of captains in their reports spe specifically said I've never been trained in shipboard firefighting I've never been on a cargo ship and aside from their comments and their written reports after uh the incident were there other details that clearly explained that this was a group of firefighters who had never really come up against this AB absolutely in in the in the uh ear early days after the fire there was a lot of talk we uh I wrote a story quoting a number of of Union officials about how the fact how they could not connect their hoses to the ship's internal stamp pipe system which is a a uh system to deliver water anywhere that in apartment buildings exactly they said that they were metric thre threads we have American threads we couldn't connect and and in the in the um incident reports they they go over that repeatedly we couldn't connect we didn't we weren't able to connect it wasn't designed for our hoses but but in in my research I found out anybody who knows anything about firefighting on a ship knows that there are international adapters that are on every ship and usually on the fire trucks of of departments that handle Port type emergencies they're called International Shore connections Newark had no idea that those were needed and and as a result of that the the fire was worse than it it should have been because they were fighting a fire with 1-in hoses that are not meant to extinguish big blazes they weren't able to connect and they didn't know why they didn't weren't able to connect I'm curious too because that night we learned that initially they arrived on scene it seemed like things were somewhat stable the crew members on this cargo ship were accounted for what happened there and why did firefighters continue going inside the container ship uh to fight this Blaze was that unveiled in your investigation yeah there there was actually no reason for them to go in um when they when they first showed up um both the incident reports and and the audio that that uh is now available talked about the fact that this was this was a this this was was a no nothing fire it it it it uh um they there were two F two cars on the top deck that were on fire the commanding officer in charge of the response said we're taking care of this we don't need Mutual Aid he canceled the EMS he cancelled other departments he said said I just don't think we going to need them and then one of the the Battalion Chiefs decided to go down deeper into the ship to see why there was still smoke coming up from from a lower deck because they that by that point learned that the fire actually had started on the 10th deck deck 10 not not on the top and he he went down there and in speaking with firefighting experts that's just not the standard operating procedure on on on a ship fire like this you either you either use the ship's fire suppression system or you stand back and let it burn out and cool it down until it burns itself out and and and you know while that might be standard operating procedures for for for experienced departments we find out during our investigation Newark had no standard operating procedures or guidelines for fighting shipboard fires and of course two firefighters were killed would it have been different perhaps a different outcome I'm just going to ask it this way would those firefighters have been alive today if there was standard oper procedures in place and they were followed depends on what the standard operating procedures were but there everyone I've spoken to say that there was no reason for anybody to go down into that that compartment and you talked earlier about how things got bad in a hurry things got very very bad in a hurry they went down there they thought it was okay initially when they went down there were two two cars on fire on the deck but you could see in the in the compartment and then within the space of minutes the smoke just started filling up the compartment where nobody could see anything it was Zero visibility and the only thing that they had the only breadcrumb trail out of the the department out of the compartment was this fire hose you let go of that you're disoriented you you might not ever find your way out two firefighters did find their way out and and two unfortunately perished after after they lost their way Ted Sherman with NJ Advanced media on this uh three-part series Ted thanks so much thanks for having me [Music]