Fire Rescue crews on Sunday worked to put out a sailboat fire in Fort Lauderdale.
According to Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue, at around 6 a.m., crews received several 911 calls about a boat that was on fire near the 100 block of Hendricks Isle.
Once at the scene, crews found a 60-foot catamaran sailboat that was on fire.
Fire rescue said that the fire quickly spread around the boat, and it took them about 30 minutes to control the fire and another hour to fully knock it down.
No one was on board the vessel.
“You know, the adrenaline is always pumping on the way to a job like this,” said Jonathan LaPadula, a captain at Sea Tow.
LaPadula told NBC6 he saw the flames roaring from the boat as he arrived.
NBC6 cameras captured the damage inside the sailboat.
The walls and ceilings were blackened with melted insulation and wiring hanging from above.
And outside, much of the boat was left charred with twists and metal and debris left behind.
“There’s a lot on board a boat that can burn hot, can burn fast, and it spreads really easily,” a firefighter said. So we are trained in ways of combating that.”
Firefighters said they were able to keep the fire from spreading to nearby homes and that the boat stuck next to it suffered only cosmetic damage.
Once the fire was out, Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue turned the scene over to the towing company.
The crew told NBC6 that they first pumped water out of the boat to keep it from sinking.
They’re now working to remove the bent mast, which was damaged after two cables caught fire and is no longer structurally sound.
Once the mass is removed, the vessel will be towed away, and then the situation will be turned over to the insurance company.
An investigation into how the sailboat caught on fire remains active.
