The Kitano is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese container ship

Container ship

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...

.
She was launched in Japan, in 1990.

2001 fire

The Kitano left the Port of New York

Port of New York and New Jersey

The Port of New York and New Jersey comprises the waterways in the estuary of the New York-Newark metropolitan area with a port district encompassing an approximate area within a radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument...

 at 0730 on 21 March 2001.
At 1600 the Kitano's crew observed that a container had caught fire. The container that caught fire contained 14 tons of activated carbon pellets impregnated with potassium hydroxide

Potassium hydroxide

Potassium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula KOH, commonly called caustic potash.Along with sodium hydroxide , this colorless solid is a prototypical strong base. It has many industrial and niche applications. Most applications exploit its reactivity toward acids and its corrosive...

 (caustic potash). Most of the pellets were in open mesh bags on wooden pallets. Two nearby containers were: "...loaded with barrels of camphene-90 wax

Camphene

Camphene is bicyclic monoterpene. It is nearly insoluble in water, but very soluble in common organic solvents. It volatilizes readily at room temperature and has a pungent smell. It is a minor constituent of many essential oils such as turpentine, cypress oil, camphor oil, citronella oil,...

, a class 4.1 dangerous cargo."

At 1636 the Kitano requested assistance. Halifax was the nearest port. Search and Rescue

Search and rescue

Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...

 aircraft were dispatched, as were several surface vessels, the , the and the . When the vessels were dispatched the wind was at force 8

Beaufort scale

The Beaufort Scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort Wind Force Scale.-History:...

. The weather conditions proved too extreme for the 140 ton Firebird, the Canadian Forces

Canadian Forces

The Canadian Forces , officially the Canadian Armed Forces , are the unified armed forces of Canada, as constituted by the National Defence Act, which states: "The Canadian Forces are the armed forces of Her Majesty raised by Canada and consist of one Service called the Canadian Armed Forces."...

' dedicated fireboat

Fireboat

A fireboat is a specialized watercraft and with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipment....

, to leave harbour. The Canadian Coast Guard

Canadian Coast Guard

The Canadian Coast Guard is the coast guard of Canada. It is a federal agency responsible for providing maritime search and rescue , aids to navigation, marine pollution response, marine radio, and icebreaking...

 vessels arrived, but the weather prohibited anything beyond standing by. and arrived several hours later. arrived at 0500 the next morning.

The vessel's Japanese owners contracted for assistance from Secunda Marine Services, the owners of the ocean-going salvage tug Ryan Leet

Ryan Leet

The Ryan Leet is an ocean-going salvage tug.She is owned and operated by Secunda Marine Services, based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.She was launched in 1978 and was previously known as the Abeille Provence and Salvor Commander....

.

It was not considered safe to allow the Kitano to enter Halifax harbour for almost 24 hours because of the danger of the fire spreading to the containers filled with camphene-90 wax. The Kitanos crew had been fighting the fire without assistance for 25 hours before they received any outside assistance due to the bad weather.

The fire was extinguished by 2215. The content of fifteen containers had been damaged by the fire or by the fire fighting efforts. The Kitano departed Halifax on March 26, 2001 with the rest of her cargo.