he Carnival Freedom suffered a fire on Saturday afternoon while sailing in stormy weather in the Bahamas.
Unconfirmed eyewitness reports posted to social media said the fire was due to a lightning strike, with the crew quickly getting the fire under control and eventually putting it out.
Video posted from passengers aboard showed the portside of Carnival’s whale-tail funnel on fire. Carnival Cruise Lien said on social media that part of the funnel had then fallen onto the open deck.
The ship reported the fire just after 3:00 p.m. local time while it was 20 miles off Eleuthera Island, Bahamas, heading to Freeport after a cancelled call to Princess Cay due to weather.
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Carnival said the U.S. Coast Guard has been notified and that it had activated the company’s response team to support the ship’s crew.
“There are no operational issues with the ship’s systems and the ship is expected to arrive to Freeport on Sunday morning,” Carnival said in a statement posted on social media.
“The captain has made multiple announcements to guests and crew and advised all but essential safety personnel to stay away from all open decks. There are no injuries. The port side portion of the funnel has fallen onto Deck 10 and the fire response is putting out the flames.”
Carnival also said it did not expect any impact to the next Carnival Freedom voyage scheduled to depart from Port Canaveral on Monday, March 25.
Of note, the this is the same ship that had a funnel fire in 2022, with Carnival having to replace the funnel at a drydock in Spain late last year.
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