FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Firefighters have extinguished a fire that erupted Wednesday morning on a yacht that was docked behind a home in Fort Lauderdale.
The fire was reported at 6:47 a.m.
Cellphone video taken from the scene along Southwest Fifth Court shows heavy smoke coming from the boat.
Tanya Remy, who lives nearby, told Local 10 News reporter Madeleine Wright that she woke up early Wednesday morning and noticed smoke coming from the boat.
She said she didn’t see any flames, but just smoke coming from the hull.
She said firefighters used some type of saw to create a hole in the front of the boat, and there were flames behind the door when they opened it up.
Another nearby resident told Wright that his dog started barking early in the morning, and when he came outside to see what was going on, he realized the yacht across the canal was on fire, so he immediately called 911.
Firefighters used a saw to cut holes in the burning boat to get access to the fire as huge plumes of smoke billowed into the air.
“Boat fires are challenging for us. With a house fire, we don’t have to worry about where the water goes, but you know, in a boat, putting that much water on a boat could sink the boat, endangering the lives of the firefighters that are on board,” Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Gollan said.
It took about an hour, but thankfully, firefighters were able to extinguish the flames without sinking the boat.
But with the 58-foot Hatteras now gutted, the man who lived onboard has to find somewhere else to stay.
Once the fire was out, crews pumped water out of the vessel to make it easier to tow.
The cause of the fire appears to be electrical.
“Older boats, electrical is always a concern, like it is in homes,” Gollan said. “The boat was built in 1973. The gentleman that lives aboard the boat says that he had put the battery charger on earlier this morning, had left and when he came back, saw us here.”
It’s unknown whether the man who lives on the boat has another place to stay.