The Coal Fire Theory
News Direct/YouTubeA coal fire burned in the Titanic’s bunkers for up to three weeks before the ship set sail, allegedly weakening the hull.
Another theory claims that a raging fire in the Titanic’s coal bunkers weakened the ship’s hull in the exact place where the iceberg struck, allowing it to do much more damage than it would have otherwise.
“Just after survivors made landfall, several people who worked on the ship’s engines cited a coal fire as the cause of the shipwreck,” the Smithsonian Magazine explained. Irish journalist Senan Molony believes that the coal fire started as early as three weeks before the Titanic set sail, but it was covered up or downplayed to prevent any delays of the voyage.
The Titanic’s coal bunkers were right inside the hull of the ship, so excessive heat from a spontaneous fire would have directly damaged the hull itself. In recently discovered photos of the ship before it set sail, Molony found his “smoking gun” — a 30-foot-long black streak on the outside of the Titanic’s hull, in the same area where it would fatefully hit the iceberg.
“We asked some naval architects what this could be, and nobody knew and everybody was intrigued,” Molony said. “The best suggestion at the time was that this was a reflection.” But engineers from Imperial College London believe that the streak came from the coal fire right inside the hull.
An article from the New York Tribune published shortly after survivors made it back to land details an early version of this theory, as reported by Snopes.
“The fire must have been raging long before she pulled out of her pier in Southampton, for the bunker was a raging hell when, one hour out past the Needles, the fire was discovered,” said an officer of the ship who requested to remain anonymous due to warnings to not talk about the fire. He added, “In my opinion, this fire played no small part in the disaster.”
The structural damage caused by the coal fire is not the only way the fire could have played a role in the Titanic’s sinking. Proponents of the coal fire theory believe that the ship’s crew members attempted to contain and control the fire by burning coal at a faster rate, increasing the ship’s speed.
The Titanic was traveling at 22 knots the night of the collision, which was close to its maximum speed, despite receiving multiple warnings of icebergs in the area. At first, it was believed the captain wanted the ship at top speed, either to break a speed record or to make sure the ship wouldn’t arrive late to New York. But the coal fire theory asserts that the reason the ship was traveling so fast was because it was burning up the smoldering coal.
Whether or not the fire happened is not in question; the coal fire theory asserts that the deadly crash was a direct result of the damage from the fire. And not everyone agrees with that idea.
“A fire may have accelerated this. But in my view, the Titanic would have sunk anyways,” said David Hill, a former honorary secretary of the British Titanic Society, in an interview with The New York Times.
