2 Men Forced To Jump From Burning Shrimp Boat

Two men had to jump overboard when their shrimp boat caught fire in the Indian River Lagoon near Rockledge on Thursday morning. The boat burned for more than three and a half hours.

MASSIVE FLAMES: Raw Video | See Images

Firefighters had to fight it from docks, because there were no fire boats. The fire burned right through the hull of the boat and now it's stuck underwater.

When the Miss Kaitlyn first caught fire, there was little the two men on board could do. They looked down in the hull of the shrimp boat and knew immediately they were in trouble.

“There was so much smoke coming, we couldn't get below deck with an extinguisher. We just couldn't get down there,” skipper Harry Towns told WFTV.

The boat had just been sold to a new owner and Harry Towns was tasked with bringing it from North Carolina to Louisiana. They were cruising through the Intracoastal Waterway just south of the 520 overpass when they noticed smoke. The two men on board jumped overboard; fortunately, another boater with five young children was nearby and picked them up.

“We just kind of paddled over that way and he had a ladder on the back and we just climbed aboard,” Towns said.

The boat burned unabated for more than 30 minutes. The Coast Guard, the sheriff and Florida Fish and Wildlife officers brought out their boats, which are not equipped to fight fires. The burning vessel drifted toward docks where anxious homeowners stood guard.

“I was afraid that it would come ashore and then start a big fire,” eyewitness Florent LesPerance said.

For hours Rockledge firefighters used hoses stretched to the end of docks to put water on it. Eventually, the boat listed and hit the bottom; the Coast Guard is now concerned it's an environmental hazard.

The skipper said he had to call the owner and tell him his new boat wasn't going to make it, but he felt lucky the fire happened near the shore and not in the middle of the Gulf.

Brevard County Fire-Rescue is in the process of outfitting two boats with firefighting equipment for cases just like this, but they still have to train firefighters and are not operational yet.