Such refit activities I have witnessed on RAN vessels were always complimented with numerous 4" shore side standard canvas fires hoses connected into the vessels FSS and continuously pressurised, so if any Fire sensor was activated, the on-board system would be operational
Again, in Australian dockyards, every oxy-acetylene activity on an Australian vessel is complete with a Fire Watcher.........
pfff....every fire watcher I found so far was usually more occupied with facefarce or candy crush somehow on their phone. These guys were usually not observed wearing lace-up boots either.
We did have
almost an incident once where the main gas line to the vessel was apparently smouldering and shut us down. Shipyard fire chief for the job insisted it was OK, then I remember my project boss showing me the charred fire arrestor for the
full vessel, after he threw it on the table earlier in the HSE meeting, and strangely, the yard fire chief (apparently a well known fire chief for the area), was never mentioned or seen again.
...Well understood the most likely chance a vessel has of catching fire is in port, or undergoing maintenence for fairly obvious reasons. A previous company I worked or spent a fortune doing life extension of their xxx vessel, had a fire in last few weeks which ripped through and cost something like upwards of 2x the damage of the life extension.
A company I visited in the states years ago had an airborne content of hazardous chemicals way over and above what any visitor should be subject to (nevermind workers) but rules change these days, they declared 2 fires based on not electrically earthing a 45gal chemical drum each time before opening and de-canting before the flame spread to other areas. This is why companies use Scully type systems now.
