Here’s the latest on the fire on the Conception dive boat that killed 34 people off Southern California on Labor Day weekend, 2019, from The Maritime Executive: After carrying out a painstaking recreation of the fire aboard the dive boat Conception, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has determined that the blaze likely began in a plastic trash can on the main deck level – not in a stack of charging lithium-ion batteries, as originally suspected. ATF investigators built a mockup of the main deck level of Conception to test out various scenarios for the fire’s starting and…

The Coast Guard just announced that it will issue a new set of interim rules covering small passenger vessels as a result of its investigation of the fire that sank that dive boat Conception off the coast of Southern California on Sept. 2, 2019, killing 33 passengers and one crew member. The interim rules are the Coast Guard’s first step toward implementing requirements required by statute. They address additional fire requirements, including fire detection and suppression systems, escape avenues, exit drills, firefighting training, watchman monitoring devices, and the handling of flammable devices, particularly rechargeable batteries. The rules follow many of…