Wareham and Onset authorities suppress Bourne boat fire that left victim badly burned

BOURNE – David Arnold was off duty on Saturday, Aug. 8 until he saw a boat consumed by fire.

Arnold, a seasonal deputy harbormaster for the Wareham Department of Natural Resources, said his mother-in-law noticed a flash in the harbor. He saw smoke billowing from a boat moored off Monument Beach which belonged to his friend.

“I was in panic,” he said. “I thought, ‘God, I hope he got off that boat.‘“

Arnold took his dinghy out to the boat, which at that point was engulfed in flames. 

He reported the fire at 4:45 p.m. Soon after, officers from Wareham DNR and Onset Fire Rescue sprang into action to extinguish the fire. The victim, whose name has not been released yet, received serious burns, which caused him to be airlifted to a Boston hospital for burn care. 

The victim had leapt into the water after his boat caught fire and grabbed onto the side of another vessel. Arnold said he stayed in the water because it cooled the burns.

“There was no way it looked like he could’ve gotten off [the boat]. I don’t know how he did,” he said.

The Good Samaritan, who Arnold described as an unsung hero, towed the victim to shore at Chester Park. Arnold said that he called 911, but that the EMTs dispatched originally went to Monument Beach Marina to take a boat to the scene. He said the ambulance arrived at Chester Park 20 minutes after he made the call. The park sits under a quarter-mile from Bourne Fire Station 2.

“It was an agonizing 20 minutes,” Arnold said.

Bourne Assistant Fire Chief Joseph Carrera said that Bourne Fire/Rescue & Emergency Services received multiple 911 calls with different facts reported, and that they are looking into the response time for this incident.

Arnold’s family members stepped up while they waited for the ambulance. His niece, Jennifer Dicarolis, and her husband, Mark Nieves, had trained for moments like these: Dicarolis is a nurse, and Nieves rescued injured soldiers from battlefields while in the Marines. Arnold said they maintained “complete, utter calm” while treating the victim through shock.

Wareham harbormaster Garry Buckminster described the firefighting effort as difficult. Firefighters used a water cannon mounted to a boat to suppress the flames, but the boat kept moving around its mooring. The officers had to navigate toxic fumes emitted from the smoldering fiberglass. Additionally, the fuel on the boat continued feeding the fire.

Bourne Fire officers had to pull the boat to the shore. Otherwise, it would have sunk from how much water it took on from the water cannon, Arnold said.

 It took 40 minutes for the first responders to put out the flames. 

“There was really good teamwork between Bourne Fire, Onset Fire, and our officers,” Buckminster said.

Buckminster said the fire “totaled” the boat, which is being salvaged by TowBoat US Cape Cod/Plymouth.

The fire started while the victim was changing the water separator on his boat, according to Arnold. Gasoline began to spill, and a spark ignited the fire.

Buckminster encouraged boat owners to be vigilant about fire safety. He said people should use their bilge blowers to blow gas fumes off of their boats and check their batteries.

“People need to be aware of how flammable the fuel on their boats can be,” he said.

Arnold was glad that he, and the Wareham and Onset emergency responders, were able to help him as quickly as they did.

“I was lucky to be where I was,” he said.