Fires aboard vessels near U.S. shores numbered 886 between 2015 and 2025, and roughly one in four of them turned serious. That is the central count in a Government Accountability Office review of how the Coast Guard prepares for marine fires, published on Sept. 29, 2026. GAO found the service has started closing gaps exposed by a deadly 2023 port fire, but said more work is needed on coordination, training and information sharing.
The report carries five recommendations to the Coast Guard and one matter for Congress to consider. The Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard’s parent department, agreed with all five recommendations, according to GAO.
The figures come from the GAO report page for GAO-26-108533, titled “Coast Guard: Additional Action Needed to Address Marine Firefighting Challenges.” In GAO’s words, “there were 886 nearshore marine fires that occurred between 2015 and 2025. About one quarter (206) of these resulted in either death, injury, over $200,000 in damage, or a total loss of the vessel.” Hazardous cargo, including lithium-ion batteries, compounds the difficulty of fighting those fires, the agency said.
GAO said Congress directed the review through the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026. Investigators analyzed Coast Guard fire data for 2015 through 2025, reviewed guidance and investigative reports, and interviewed Coast Guard officials, fire chiefs and maritime industry representatives.
Where the serious fires happened
The serious fires were not spread evenly along the coasts. According to the full GAO report, the Coast Guard’s Heartland District “recorded the highest number of serious marine fires from 2015 through 2025, due to fires along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, and on the Mississippi River.” Towing vessels were the most common type involved in that district, followed by barges and fishing vessels.
Much of the report turns on who answers the call. GAO’s findings focus on land-based fire departments, the municipal crews who respond when a vessel burns at a pier or in a port, and on how well the Coast Guard prepares and coordinates with them before a fire starts.
GAO also flagged lithium-ion batteries as a growing hazard. Such fires, the report says, “can result in the battery overheating and releasing large volumes of toxic gases that can catch fire very quickly and are difficult to extinguish.”
The Grande Costa D’Avorio fire and the task force that followed
GAO points to a 2023 fire aboard the Grande Costa D’Avorio in the port of Newark, New Jersey, in which two land-based firefighters died. The National Transportation Safety Board’s marine investigation report MIR-25-16, adopted April 15, 2025, describes the ship as a 692-foot, Italian-flagged roll-on/roll-off container vessel and dates the fire to July 5, 2023. NTSB found that a passenger vehicle used as a pusher vehicle, a job it was not intended for, overheated until its transmission fluid boiled over and ignited on a hot engine surface. NTSB listed the Newark Fire Division’s “lack of marine vessel firefighting training” among the contributing factors.
After that fire, the Coast Guard stood up the National Salvage and Marine Firefighting Task Force in January 2024, according to GAO. The task force is developing guidance to standardize sector marine firefighting plans, and in August 2025 it produced a quick-response card that helps Coast Guard command center watchstanders gather information during a fire, such as whether a ship’s own firefighting systems still work.
Five recommendations for the Coast Guard
GAO said gaps remain in four areas: consistent Coast Guard field personnel for pre-incident coordination with fire departments, hands-on training for land-based firefighters, a way to share marine firefighting information, and guidance on when to activate a vessel response plan during a fire. Its five recommendations to the Coast Guard are to:
- assign marine firefighting coordination duties to specific field-unit positions, working with each Captain of the Port;
- have Captains of the Port engage fire departments and maritime stakeholders to coordinate shipboard training, including vessel tours and exercises;
- set up a mechanism to store and share marine firefighting information;
- issue guidance on the factors for activating a vessel response plan during a marine fire; and
- issue regulations requiring tank vessel owners to prepare response plans for hazardous substance discharges.
On training, the report says some Coast Guard officials told GAO that “tactical, hands-on training, like vessel tours and functional vessel fire exercises, better prepares firefighters for complex fire incidents, rather than virtual training alone.” Fire chiefs in three sectors said limited time in port makes vessel tours and exercises hard to schedule.
The safety board had pointed the same direction. In an April 15, 2025 release on its Newark findings, NTSB called on land-based fire departments to improve marine vessel firefighting training and familiarity, with recommendations addressed to the Newark Fire Division, port and firefighter associations, and the Coast Guard.
Alternative-fuel ships fall outside the plan rules
The matter for Congress concerns ships that do not burn oil. Under the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2006, a “nontank vessel” is defined in part as one that “carries oil of any kind as fuel for main propulsion,” GAO explained. That wording now sits in 33 U.S.C. 1321(a)(26), which also limits the term to self-propelled vessels of at least 400 gross tons that are not tank vessels. As a result, the Coast Guard “cannot require nontank vessels that use alternative fuel sources to have VRPs for worst case hazardous substance discharges,” the report says, citing ferries powered by lithium-ion batteries and containerships powered by ammonia as examples.
GAO suggested Congress amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to require those vessels to prepare such plans. With DHS on record agreeing to all five recommendations, the next step on the record is the Coast Guard’s own: assigning coordinators, building the training and sharing tools, and writing the tank-vessel rule GAO called for.
Top image: Responders apply water to the roll-on/roll-off ship Grande Costa d’Avorio during the fire at Port Newark, N.J. Image Credit: U.S. Coast Guard photo by Dan Henry — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.