A fire on a de­com­mis­sioned oil tanker an­chored just off the Port of Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day has been de­scribed as an ac­ci­dent.

Fire of­fi­cials said the ves­sel had been aban­doned in lo­cal wa­ters since 2011 and was pur­chased by a lo­cal com­pa­ny for scrap met­al.

Work was on­go­ing on the tanker when a spark ig­nit­ed resid­ual fu­el on board just be­fore 8 am. The Fire Ser­vices re­spond­ed and got sup­port from the Coast Guard, Ma­rine Po­lice and the Port Au­thor­i­ty to ex­tin­guish the blaze.

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Earl Samp­son, who is in charge of the North­ern Di­vi­sion, said it took ap­prox­i­mate­ly three-and-a-half hours to bring the fire un­der con­trol with as­sis­tance from a Port Au­thor­i­ty tug­boat.

The ves­sel, Aqua Ma­rine, which is owned by lo­cal firm Jose Ma­ri­na, was along­side a barge, C Nep­tune when resid­ual fu­el caught fire. The ves­sel is cur­rent­ly 90 per cent un­der­wa­ter.

Samp­son said there was no oil spill from the in­ci­dent, on­ly a slight residue. The ex­tent of the dam­age to the ves­sel is still be­ing de­ter­mined.

Di­vi­sion Fire Of­fi­cer Dar­ron Das­ant al­so re­spond­ed to the call.