A 42-foot trawler caught fire off the coast of Mansanita Beach, Oregon, near Nehalem Bay State Park, on June 18 and burned to the waterline, but the only person on board, who was rescued by a nearly fishing vessel, escaped injury, U.S Coast Guard officials said.
The survivor, the captain and owner of the vessel, was transferred to a Coast Guard response boat and brought to shore, according to the USCG.
The incident was first reported by the publication The Maritime Executive, which quoted BM1 Aaron Harris of the Coast Guard Tillamook station as saying “the captain was very, very lucky that there was another boat on scene to assist him; otherwise he would’ve been in a lot of trouble.”
“More than likely if that other boat hadn’t been there, he would’ve been forced to enter the water and wait for us,” he said. Harris added that the blaze likely started as a stack fire and spread to the vessel’s fiberglass composite hull, but the Coast Guard was later unable to confirm that.
A salvage company was called to deal with the vessel itself, but Coast Guard officials later said the trawler was not seen, and likely sank.