The container shipping industry needs to move fire prevention much further upstream, identifying dangerous cargo risks at booking rather than discovering them after a box has been loaded onboard.
That is the central argument of a new report from Thetius and Tigris Systems examining why dangerous goods incidents remain stubbornly difficult to prevent despite established international regulations.
The scale of the problem is worsening. There were 250 vessel fires in 2024, up 20% year-on-year and the highest number for a decade, while TT Club estimates a major containership fire occurs roughly every 60 days. Undeclared and misdeclared dangerous goods remain the leading cause, according to the World Shipping Council.
The report argues shipping does not primarily suffer from a lack of information. The problem is that declarations, safety data sheets and subsequent corrections often sit in different emails, PDFs and operational systems, leaving carriers, terminals and vessels working from incomplete or outdated versions.
“Before loading, you need to know exactly what is in the container,” says dangerous goods safety adviser Paola Staiano. “You cannot feed the system with approximate information.”
One proposed solution is much more aggressive digital screening at the booking stage. Dangerous goods declarations, safety data sheets and supporting documents should be automatically compared for conflicting UN numbers, classifications, packaging and quantities. Systems should also extract operational information such as temperature limits, segregation requirements and firefighting instructions.
This matters particularly for lithium-ion batteries, charcoal and other cargoes where the practical risk may not be obvious from the standard classification alone.
Better data must also follow the container. A corrected declaration is useless if the terminal or stowage planner continues working from the old version.
“If that data cannot be reused, it is nothing more than a glorified paper,” said Mattias Larsson, chief product officer at MARANICS.
Automation can eliminate much of the repetitive checking — Staiano estimated around 90% of document review in her organisation remains manual — but the report strongly cautioned against removing specialist oversight. Algorithms should flag inconsistencies, not quietly correct them and allow questionable cargo to proceed.
Physical verification also remains important. Photographs or digital surveys taken when higher-risk containers are packed could provide evidence that cargo is correctly secured and packaged.
Once onboard, crews need immediate digital access to accurate cargo information and the correct emergency response.
The report’s main message is simple: stopping the next major containership fire begins long before anyone smells smoke. Better declarations, earlier screening, connected systems and clear accountability need to stop the dangerous box before it ever reaches the ship.
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