Firefighters Electrocuted In Boat Blaze

ST. CLAIR SHORES — Two St. Clair Shores firefighters were injured Thursday night after being electrocuted while battling a blaze on a sailboat in the Jefferson Beach Marina. Officials said the firefighters suffered non-life threatening injuries. They were initially taken to St. John Hospital in Detroit and later transferred to the Detroit Medical Center.

Firefighters were dispatched to the marina, which is located between Fresard and Trombly streets on Jefferson avenue, at 6:10 p.m., according to a report in the St. Clair Shores Sentinel. Fire officials believe a lightning strike caused the sailboat to catch fire. Witnesses reported heavy black smoke in the area and a caller told fire officials that smoke was filling the cabin, the newspaper reported.

No one was inside the boat when the fire broke out. More than a dozen St. Clair Shores firefighters responded to the fire and fought the fire dangerous high winds and rain, according to a press release from the St. Clair Shores Fire Department.

Firefighters boarded the boat and began to fight the flames, but heavy winds knocked power lines into the sailboat mast, electrifying the boat and injuring two firefighters, the St. Clair Shores Sentinel reported. The fire is under investigation and the department did not release the names of the injured firefighters.

Battalion Chief Matt Hanna to the St. Clair Shores Sentinel that once the boat was electrified, it became more difficult to fight the fire. “Once something is electrified like that, we can’t put water on it because it could shock us just on the water line,” he told the newspaper. “What we try to do when something is electrified, we try to prevent the fire from spreading to other structures or things. “It limits our ability to actually put the fire out at that point.”

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